Last Chance to Die

12



Vail and Bursaw sat in the front seat of the WFO agent’s car. Between them were take-out orders of hamburgers and fries. They were in southeast D.C. watching a street corner that was busy with prostitutes flagging down cars. “Is this what passes for dinner theater in Washington?” Vail asked.

“I thought it would be nostalgic for you. You probably haven’t talked to a hooker since you were run out of Detroit.”

“For the record, I wasn’t run out—I walked. Let me see her picture again.”

Bursaw handed him the mug shot of Denise Washington. Her hair was matted, and her skin was washed out and blemished by continual drug abuse. Vail handed it back. “I could be wrong, but didn’t you bring her to the Christmas party one year in Detroit?”

“That’s right. It was the year you brought that ‘exotic dancer’ with the Adam’s apple.”

“Fool me once . . .”

Bursaw laughed. “I wish she’d show up. It’s getting to be the drive-by-shooting hour, and I’m already spending way too much time in court.”

They continued eating for the next few minutes. “Maybe we should deputize one of these girls. Put her on the payroll, and she could give you a call when the fair Denise shows up.”

“What are the chances of a hooker calling me?”

“A good-looking African-American like yourself, plus twenty dollars? Don’t sell yourself short.” Vail straightened up. “That’s her there, isn’t it?”

Bursaw took a closer look at the young woman getting out of a pickup truck. “Now, see, Vail, that’s why I wanted you here. Not because you’re any kind of agent, but because you are the world’s luckiest white man.” Pulling away from the curb, Bursaw drove for a half block before making a U-turn. He coasted back to where the young woman stood and stopped in front of her. He rolled down the window and leaned across Vail. “Denise!”

She looked at the two men who were obviously law enforcement and shook her head disgustedly. “I ain’t doing nothing,” she protested.

“We’re not here for that. Get in the backseat.”

“I didn’t do nothing.” He flipped open his credentials, and she said, “FBI? I sure as hell didn’t do nothing that bad.”

“I’m here about the man who attacked you.”

The other girls were starting to move away from the corner. Denise smiled. “Well, what kept you boys?” She strutted comically for the other girls, as if she were getting into a limousine. Once the door was closed, she said, “I hope you’re here to tell me that you caught that freak.”

Bursaw turned around in his seat and said, “I just found out about it today. But I’m making it a priority. Did you know him?”

“Never saw him before.”

“Ever date him?”

“Not me, but some of the other girls told me they did.”

Bursaw handed her the photographs of the three prostitutes that had been murdered. “Any of these girls?”

She shuffled past the first two, but the third girl caused a reaction. “You think he’s the one who killed Darlene?”

“That’s what we’d like to ask him. Tell me about what happened with you.”

“You sure we’re cool?”

“This is what it is, Denise. Nothing else.”

“Okay, but if it ain’t, this is entrapment.”

“I’ll consider myself warned,” Bursaw said.

“I guess it was two or three months ago. He pulls up, and I ask him what he wants. He agrees to the money, and I get in. He had this old van, the kind with no windows. He drives for a couple of blocks. I could tell he knew where he was going. Some dead-end street, just factories and stuff. I tell him I need the money up front. He gives me a twenty, and we start to get busy. All of a sudden, he’s got this screwdriver pressed to my neck and tells me to get in the back. I hesitate, and he jabs it into my skin.” She lifted her head. “I still got a scar.” Both agents inspected the rectangular mark that the tip of a screwdriver would leave. “So I get in the back. Once I’m there, I see he’s got ropes tied to the inside braces on the walls, four of them. I’ve been doing this long enough to know I was in trouble. He sets down the screwdriver so he can use both his hands to tie me. I waited until he was just about to tighten the first knot, and then I picked up the screwdriver and stabbed him with it. I must have hit him pretty good, because he fell back yelling in pain. Then I jumped out and ran as fast as I could.”

“Have you seen him since?”

“I haven’t.”

“Did you talk to the other girls about him?”

“Sure. We’re always warning each other. But if it’s slow out here, you know, you’re not as careful.”

“According to the report you filed, it happened after Darlene was killed.”

“That sounds about right. You think it was this freak?”

“She was tortured, and both ankles and wrists had rope burns on them.”

“Jesus Almighty. It’s got to be him, then.”

“Tell me about the van—what color, make, model, whatever you can.”

“All I remember is it was old, maybe white, with some big rust spots on it. I couldn’t tell you what kind. There was fast-food wrappers and a bunch of other garbage in the back, like he never cleaned it.”

“Describe him.”

“Black, maybe in his thirties. Medium build. Had his head shaved. Never saw him standing up, so I don’t know how tall he was, but probably average.”

“Where did you stab him?” Vail asked.

“You know, I just lashed out. I think it was in the chest.”

“Think you got any depth?”

“It felt like it. And the way he fell back, I’m pretty sure I did.”

Bursaw took out a dozen business cards and handed them to her. “Give these to the other girls. Anybody sees him, call me twenty-four hours a day. Let them know there’s a decent chance that one of them could be next. The best thing we can get is a license plate. It’s worth some money.”

“If this’s the fool who did Darlene that way, it’d be an insult to her to take money.”

She got out of the car and leaned back in the window. “You really FBI?” she asked Bursaw. Then she got a mischievous grin on her face. “Ain’t this the part where you’re supposed to give me the lecture about getting out of the life?”

“Since you didn’t pay any attention to the guy with the screwdriver, why would I bother?”

She laughed a single syllable and backed away from the car. “I’m going to call you, Mr. FBI. One way or the other.”

As Bursaw pulled away from the curb, Vail said, “Looks like somebody’s got a date for this year’s Christmas party.”

At a few minutes before nine the next morning, Vail walked into the assistant director’s office. He had received a call from John Kalix that a meeting had been scheduled to plan Yanko Petriv’s arrest. Kate was sitting at a small conference table, along with Kalix and the three unit and section chiefs Vail had been introduced to at the off-site on New Year’s Day. He sat down next to her. “Where’s the boss man?” he asked.

Kalix, said, “He’s at the Department of Justice, getting authorization for Petriv’s arrest.”

“Have you found out where he works?”

Kalix said, “NSA. He was born in Bulgaria, and currently he’s a Bulgarian and Czech interpreter for them. Those lists of handwritten phone numbers you found in the safe-deposit box are some of the phones they’re up on. Bill talked to his counterpart over there last night and let them know what we’ve found. They called back this morning and said they haven’t gotten anything off those wires in over two months. Previously they’d been fairly productive.”

The door opened, and Bill Langston walked in with another man, someone Vail hadn’t seen before, but he had an idea who it was. “Everyone, this is Lance Wimert from OPR.”

Vail leaned over to Kate. “I wonder who he could be here to see.”

Langston continued, “We’re green-lighted to detain Mr. Petriv.”

“By ‘detain’ you mean arrest, right?” Kate asked.

“I mean detain, as in hold with extremely slow due process. Justice has consented to this approach because of the possibility of others on the list fleeing. Once we grab him, our ten-day clock will start ticking. I’ve talked to NSA and explained the evidence to them. They’re setting up Petriv at work for us. He’ll be called away from his desk, and we will casually escort him out. I should be getting a call any minute to let us know that everything is set.”

Vail said to Kate, “Did you tell him about Dellasanti?”

“Yes, she called me last night,” the assistant director said. “So I called the director. Mark, you’re handling that.”

The unit chief, Mark Brogdon, straightened up. “I have an entire surveillance squad ready to go. They’ll be in the park late tonight and look for some good spots to get an eyeball on the bridge. They don’t know any of the specifics, except that they’ll be covering a potential dead drop.”

Kate looked at Vail and, as if anticipating what he was going to ask, said, “If Dellasanti does pick up the package, Bill wants us to take custody of it and see if we can find the next link.”

Langston said, “I have to give it to you, Steve, the two of you figuring out that fingerprint code. Very slick. Apparently Calculus left clues each time so we could figure out the next name. Am I correct?”

Kate had been right about Langston’s being nobody’s fool. He had figured out the connection between the moles without the advantage of the Ariadne inscription. “He has so far.”

“Knowing your disdain for management, it’s not that hard to figure out why you didn’t tell anyone about it.” He looked at Kate. “At least not any of my people.”

“If you check my old performance ratings,” Vail said, “you’ll see that ‘doesn’t work well with others’ was one of my more consistent character flaws.”

Langston chuckled. “I could see where you’d be a nightmare to manage, but you do get results. It’s unfortunate you won’t be able to go with us today to detain Mr. Petriv.”

Vail looked at the agent from OPR and then at Kate. “Me and Lance going to spend a little time together?”

“There are some legitimate concerns about Pollock’s death that need to be answered immediately,” Langston said.

“Like what?”

“The syringe that was recovered from the crime scene had one set of prints on it—yours. Do you know what was in it? Temazepam. Do you know what that is?”

“A depressant.”

“Yes, it is, but do you know what intelligence agencies have been rumored to use it for? Truth serum. Pollock looked like he’d been tortured and then given a truth drug. By us. The Russians don’t use it. They have their own proprietary blend, something called SP-17, according to a defector. So that leaves us holding the temazepam bag. Do you see a pattern here? There can be no explanation that doesn’t sound like we’re covering something up. Especially with you being—no pun intended—a contract employee.”

“There was a deputy assistant director with me. Do you think she was involved in torture?”

“I don’t think either one of you was,” Langston said. “This is a potentially catastrophic public-relations problem that has to be defused immediately. OPR spends a lot more time clearing our employees than having them prosecuted. And Kate will be interviewed, too, once your statement has been taken and analyzed. OPR has decided to interview you first because of your constant threat to just quit and jump on a plane to Chicago.”

Vail laughed and then looked at Kate. She looked away. So she knew that this was coming, he thought. The only reason he’d accepted the director’s offer was the hope of reinstating Kate’s reputation, which had been momentarily tarnished by the ridiculous assumption that she’d attempted suicide. He got up and walked to the door. He turned and looked at Kate and the men around her. Evidently she had been returned to a full-share member of the team. For whatever that was worth. Would her career always come between them? He turned back to Langston. “Nicely done, Bill.”

“I had nothing to do with this. You’re the one who went sneaking off on your own and wound up in the middle of this mess.”

“That fingerprint exam on the syringe and the blood chemistry that found the temazepam—you didn’t have that expedited?”

Langston’s usual stoic expression twisted into a knot of anger fueled by the embarrassment of being caught in a lie. Just then his phone rang. He took his time going to his desk to compose himself. “Bill Langston.” As he listened, he sat down and pulled a pen out of a desk holder. “I see. . . . Yes, I do, but give it to me anyhow.” He wrote something down and hung up. “Petriv didn’t show up for work today, and he didn’t call in,” he announced to everyone, and then looked at Vail.

Vail glanced back at him and then at Kate. Still she didn’t meet his eyes. Apparently he’d been in denial about her truly wanting to end their relationship. But was he reading this correctly, or was he just feeling contempt for everything because he was being so artfully removed from the case? Something this confusing usually just made him mad, but instead he was feeling defiant, defiance being his oldest and most reliable ally. “Good luck.”

Kate knew what that meant. Everybody in the world was on his own. Especially Steve Vail. She had seen something deep in his eyes, something only she recognized—revenge. It was perhaps his only selfish indulgence. He would find some way to involve himself in the case and succeed when everyone else failed. And then he would walk away, his final measure of contempt for the FBI and those who thought they ran it.

After Vail and the OPR agent left, Langston tore the page off the notepad. “I’ve got his home address. Let’s go.”