Top Ten (11 page)

The director nodded with hopeful concern and signaled the AD to go on.

“Did he tell you anything else, Agent Grace?”

“Just something about the local police finding him boned and folded.”

The director put his hand to his mouth and shook his head.

“I don’t know what that means, sir,” Ariel admitted. “I haven’t seen any photos.”

On the small coffee table between the couch and the wingbacks there was a file folder. Kellerman reached into it and laid a photo on top. “Here it is.”

Ariel looked. In a shallow hole in soft earth, it appeared, Francis Gunther’s flattened face lay atop a pile of something. She bent to inspect it closer and saw that the pile was the rest of Francis Gunther sandwiched upon itself.

“Those came in from Minnesota an hour ago,” Kellerman said. “Francis Gunther had every bone removed from his body and what was left was folded up like an accordion and buried in the sand beneath a playground. A little girl on a swing accidentally discovered him.”

Ariel shook her head. “Not accidental, sir. This is what he does. His art goes for shock value.”

“This isn’t art,” the director observed with disgust.

“To him it is, sir,” Ariel said.

“Whatever he thinks it is, his killing Francis Gunther seems to prove a theory, Agent Grace.” Kellerman pointed to her. “Your theory.”

“I wasn’t completely right.”

“You were damn close,” Director Weaver said.

“All but on the money,” Kellerman said, then added, “And this is the second time.”

His addendum zinged her. “Pardon me, sir...”

“Tell us Agent Grace,” Director Weaver began, “how did you find Mills DeVane?”

The second time? DeVane? What was this about? “Sir, I didn’t find him.”

“Well tell us how you
thought
you’d found him.”

She’d tried to forget all about Atlanta. All about Mills DeVane. But now he was back, dredged up for some reason. And she was being made to talk about him. “It was the newspaper, sir.”

“What newspaper?”

Jack Hale already knew the story, and she had the suspicion that the other two men in the room had as well. For some reason, though, they wanted to hear it from her. “We had two chance surveillance photos of DeVane from a liquor store where he was spotted and one a month later at a gas station. There were witnesses at both locations who identified him and called in the sightings. That’s how we got the pictures. In each of the photos he had a newspaper under his arm. One woman recalled that it was an
Atlanta Journal
.”

The director’s face shrugged. “And...”

“I wondered why Mills DeVane would be walking around Atlanta with a newspaper under his arm. Why? And then I remembered a sighting with no corroborating surveillance photos about three months earlier. Someone had thought they’d seen DeVane walking through a motel parking lot with a newspaper under his arm.”

“You thought it was a meet signal.”

They hadn’t heard, Ariel realized, and gave Jack Hale a look. The oddest, faintest smile was barely twisting his lips.

“No, sir. I thought it might be more than just a flag to alert someone, maybe a contact, that he was there. I thought the newspaper itself might hold the instructions for a meeting.”

“Classifieds?” Kellerman asked, and Ariel nodded.

“From that earlier sighting we knew where he likely was for a meeting, and we knew what paper he had from the later witness reports, so I had the classified ads for the days leading up to the earliest sighting scrutinized. And we found something in the previous day’s paper.” She still remembered it. “Four seven twelve Natalie. Seven.”

Kellerman was nodding and smiling. “The address.”

“Four seven one two Natalie Way,” Ariel confirmed. “The location of the Grand View Motel, where Mills DeVane was sighted at approximately seven p.m. After we had that we went back to the classifieds for the times near the two documented sightings and we found similar ads. And there were two motels in the two areas with address numbers mentioned in the ads, on streets mentioned in the ads.”

“So you took his picture there,” Director Weaver surmised quite correctly.

“And we found witnesses. Desk clerks, customers from those days.”

“And from that day on you watched the classifieds,” Kellerman said.

“Like a hawk.”

Kellerman nodded and shared a look with Jack Hale.

“You were surprised when he wasn’t there,” the AD suggested.

“Very,” Ariel said. “Because the ad was in the paper.” She shot a look Hale’s way. “But someone made a mistake and he was spooked.”

“There was no mistake, Agent Grace” Kellerman said, the statement more confirmation than denial.

“What do you mean?”

It was not Kellerman who explained his remark. It was Jack Hale. “What he’s saying, Ariel, is that there was a car on the boulevard that night.”

“
What?
” she asked, dumbstruck.

“It was my car,” Hale told her, and her mouth hung open.

Director Weaver sat forward and drew her attention. “Agent Grace, I didn’t approve your being removed from the DeVane case because you were off the mark. The fact of the matter is you were getting too close.”

“You would have caught him that night if Agent Hale hadn’t scared him off,” Kellerman said.

Ariel looked to each of them. Her head was shaking. She was at a loss. “Why in the world would you want to let Mills DeVane get away?”

“Because he’s one of us,” Director Weaver said. “He’s an FBI agent. Undercover.”

Ariel stared slack-jawed at him, then asked, “Can I have that drink now?”

Jack Hale got it for her, lime fizzy water, and sat next to her again, his arm on the back of the couch behind her. She sipped her drink and looked at him and saw something different in his face. Something that seemed out of place there, in him, on him, part of him: apology.

“I didn’t want to pull you Ariel. I didn’t want to cut you down in front of everybody. But I had no choice. It had to look real.”

“It felt real,” she said, then the weight of what they were telling her hit. Another long sip half drained the bottle and she set it on the coffee table. “Jesus, what is he doing on the most wanted list if he’s UC?”

“Credibility,” Jack Hale said.

Director Weaver spoke next, all things about him right then exuding seriousness. Danger. “Agent Grace, you’re one of a select few to know anything about this operation. I don’t need to say the obvious.”

That Mills DeVane would be a dead man if the truth ever leaked out, or was surmised upon. “No sir.”

Kellerman was the one to continue the explanation. “Three years ago we created Mills DeVane. That isn’t his real name. I won’t tell you what is. He may yet have a life after this operation is complete.”

Ariel didn’t like his use of the ‘may’ word.

“The plan was actually quite simple,” Kellerman went on, his admiration apparent for what he, or someone, had conceived. “First we erased the man that Mills DeVane was, but we got to keep his skills.”

“Four years Air Force,” Jack Hale offered.

“Six years in the Bureau. No wife. No children. Low profile. No press on anything he’d done. Minimal interaction with agents, and those that might have recognized him wouldn’t after some minor cosmetic surgery. He has that kind of face. Chameleon-like.”

“And the lousy picture,” Ariel suggested.

“Planned,” Kellerman confirmed. “Anyone who knew the man that Mills DeVane used to be would not be able to look at that shot we got and make him.”

Ariel was shaking her head in minor awe. “And his record? Fabricated?”

“Retiring U.S. Marshal Trevor Noonan was more than cooperative to lend his name to the operation,” Kellerman explained. “A few fake days in Walter Reed and some dramatic bandaging...”

“And you have a federal offense,” Ariel completed the line of thought. That was a requirement for being on the Bureau’s ten most wanted list. DeVane had ‘assaulted’ a federal officer. They’d put Michaelangelo on after urging from New York State and Pennsylvania officials, using a statute concerning the interstate transport of controlled substances—his use of napoxcypharin on his victims in three states. It was a stretch, but the jurisdictional nightmare of a tri-state investigation made this the best approach, the thinking had gone. Though it was four states, now, Ariel reminded herself. And likely to grow beyond that, she feared. That, though, wasn’t the greatest fear in this room, and she knew it.

“He’s wanted, he can fly,” Kellerman said.

“Air Force records?” Ariel asked.

“Washed clean,” Kellerman answered. “Mills DeVane has his own Air Force records. With disciplinary and drug problems.”

“Clever,” Ariel commented.

“Agent Hale’s idea.” Kellerman tipped his head to the Atlanta ASAC.

“So you were in on the planning of this?” Ariel asked Hale. “From the beginning?”

“Agent Hale ‘runs’ Mills DeVane,” Kellerman said. “As much as anyone can run a UC as deep as he is.”

The picture was starting to form now for Ariel. She had to admit, it was beautiful. “So DeVane puts his piloting skills to use and starts hauling drugs in for dealers.”

“And major suppliers,” Kellerman clarified. “We get enough info from him to build information on the supply and distribution operations of the cartels, the major dealers. And from that we run other, completely separate operations to interdict a portion of what comes in. By doing things right we can stop enough of the stuff from hitting the streets to make a difference.”

“Without giving him away,” Jack Hale added. “That’s the trick.”

“That was the plan,” Kellerman said. His words reeked of prelude. “Things changed after about a year.”

Ariel’s look said that she was listening.

“Jack...” Kellerman knew this was Hale’s thing. He’d had to deal with it from the get go. Had made the call to let Mills shift gears, if you will, to see if something big developed. And had it ever.

Ariel turned toward the man she had almost let herself loathe. She didn’t know yet what to feel about Jack Hale, but it certainly couldn’t be enmity anymore, could it? He was simply doing his job. Protecting another agent.

“Two years ago a man who Mills DeVane had been pulling shipments for asked him to do something a little different: deliver some money out of the country.”

“Laundering?” Ariel asked. That could be big. Far reaching implications to other organizations, governments. Bribes. You name it. That made sense.

But Jack Hale was shaking his head.

“Payments,” Hale told her.

“Big payments, Agent Grace,” Director Weaver said, offering a word after mostly listening to his AD give her the low down. “We’re talking in the millions of dollars.”

“Tens of millions,” Hale expanded. “Over many months and many payments. DeVane and other pilots contracted by Hoag would fly bags of cash out to an island in the Caribbean and hand it over to a man we were able to identify as Yves Costain.”

“Arms merchant,” Ariel said. “There was an Interpol notice about him in
Law Enforcement Bulletin
. So Hoag was paying Costain for what? Weapons?”

“More like advance payment for large ticket items,” Hale said. “We didn’t really have a good idea of what that might be until about nine months ago when Costain was joined by another man at this payday. Valentin Gryoko. Russian. An arms merchant himself who has, over the past few years, made a name with his ability to procure and deliver shoulder- fired surface to air missiles to anyone who can pay the price. And not Afghan era crap. We’re talking top of the line Russian models.”

“You don’t have to be told what just one of those things could do in this country,” Director Weaver said.

“Going price on the black market for top of the line SAMs is one million, Ariel.” Jack Hale smiled nervously. “Hoag has paid these two close to seventy five million already.”

“My God,” Ariel reacted.

“My God is right,” Kellerman agreed. “Hoag has ties to some far flung groups, Agent Grace. Some bad boys and girls who’d like nothing better than to take out some aircraft over some cities. Put on a show. Scare people.”

“Maybe take some shots at Air Force One,” Director Weaver suggested.

“Isn’t it protected against that kind of attack?” Ariel asked.

Director Weaver gave her a most unsettling answer. “That’s the theory.”

“So you can see, Ariel,” Jack Hale continued, “how important it is that Mills DeVane complete this mission. This new thing that his mission has become. We have to know where and how whatever Costain is selling Hoag is coming into the country. The best way to do that is to see that DeVane is the one bringing them in.”

“They’re SAM’s,” Kellerman told the group. “I’ll lay money on it.”

“Whatever it is,” Director Weaver began, “we’ve put a lot into this operation. We’ve given DeVane added credibility by numbering the most wanted list—”

“That was why it was done,” Ariel said, the realization hitting her hard. The realization and the irony. “And doing so might just have put him in jeopardy from Michaelangelo.”

Director Weaver looked to each of the three agents with him, his gaze settling finally on Ariel. “I will not be the man who has to tell the President that airplanes are being shot out of American skies because a Bureau operation failed. I will not. Under no circumstances can we allow Mills DeVane to be captured inadvertently by our own people, compromised by inaction or incompetence, or killed by some lunatic who is out to right some wrong he sees us as having done to him by putting him last on the most wanted list. Is that understood?”

Hale and Kellerman nodded. Ariel verbalized her acknowledgment with. “Yes, sir.”

Hale touched her on the arm to get her attention. “It’s only by blind luck that you’re involved in both cases. DeVane and Michaelangelo. That’s fortunate for us, but it’s going to be a heavy load for you.”

Ariel coughed a shallow breath. “I’m one person.”

“You’re one person whose going to have to guard a secret and protect an asset,” Kellerman told her. “Mills DeVane is that asset.”

“The best course of action is to stop that lunatic and let DeVane complete his mission,” Director Weaver said to the group. There could be no disagreement with that.