Last Chance to Die

15



Sitting in the backseat, Kate listened to Kalix and Langston. Their conversation had a controlled excitement to it. The car was positioned a good half mile from the entrance to the park where it was believed that James Dellasanti was going to pick up the package left by Calculus. He thought it was going to contain only money, while the agents hoped for money and documents. The surveillance crew that had gotten there first thing in the morning had found a package wrapped in black plastic and sealed with tape. It had been found where Vail had predicted it would be, under the end of a small footbridge, a five-minute walk from the parking lot.

The staccato radio transmissions between the surveillance teams at the drop site and those following Dellasanti’s car cut back and forth through the air rhythmically like a slow, efficient tennis match. Both Langston and Kalix shifted in their seats anxiously. Kate should have been more excited about what was getting ready to happen, but Vail’s not being there was dulling this once-in-a-career experience for her. She thought about the Russians trying to kill him the night before and how if she had been there he might not have been at as great a risk. After he called her from the Oakton station, she felt sick, not because of what he’d gone through but because she hadn’t taken a stronger stand against Langston’s excluding him. She drew in a sobering breath and tried to not think about Vail.

She leaned her head back and started drifting off between transmissions. Every third one or so, Langston had Kalix send some unnecessary instruction. She could picture the men at the other end rolling their eyes.

“We’re approaching the park,” the team leader following Dellasanti said.

Langston sat up a little straighter and took the mike out of Kalix’s hand. “Make sure you give him enough room. We’ve got people inside the park. We’ll have nothing if you spook him off the pickup.”

The assistant director waited a few seconds for his transmission to be rogered. The radio remained silent. Kate smiled. She knew that it was a tacit protest. This is what these agents did all day, week in and week out. The disdain that street agents developed for upper management certainly couldn’t be called a mystery. “Did you copy?” Langston asked, his tone becoming more imperious. Again there was no answer, and just as Langston was about to retransmit his demand, two slow, static-punctuated pushes came from the surveillance leader’s mike button, confirming that the instruction had been received.

Less than a minute later, Kate watched Dellasanti’s car pass by, recognizing it from the surveillance description. Neither Langston nor Kalix seemed to notice. “We’re pulling into the parking lot,” the team leader said.

“Let’s go, John,” Langston said. Kalix eased the car into gear and drove at a controlled pace through the entrance to the park. The terrain surrounding the parking lot was slightly rolling and heavily treed with hardwoods that now stood stark in the winter sunlight. In the distance ahead, winding footpaths disappeared into long stretches of evergreens. A large sign gave the park hours and listed the different trails, all coded by color.

There was about a half hour of daylight left, and a few hundred feet away, Kate could see their target exiting his car. She said, “That’s him getting out of the green station wagon just ahead, John.”

There were a handful of commuter cars scattered throughout the lot, and Kalix pulled into the first space he saw, turning off the engine. They watched as Dellasanti looked back once and then took off at a pace that indicated he knew where he was going, entering the trail marked “Green.” The leader of the unit that had followed him handed off the “eye” to the surveillance people hidden in the park. “Okay, Twenty-seven Three, he’s all yours. We’ll set up outside the entrance in case you need us to get back on him.”

“We’ll keep you posted, Twelve Two.”

“Come on,” Langston said, opening the car door. “Did you see the way he was looking around? You could convict him on body language alone.”

“A suggestion, Bill,” Kate said. “I’d let the surveillance people handle this. Nobody is around. If he sees us, especially the way we’re dressed, he’ll make us in a heartbeat.”

Langston looked down at his suit and then at Kalix. “You’re probably right. We’ll wait here.”

The three of them listened in silence as the agents hidden in the woods described every move Dellasanti made. “Subject has crossed the bridge and then stopped. He’s looking around . . . coming around the end of the bridge . . . squatting down . . . reaching under. . . . All units, be advised the subject has the package. He’s put it inside his coat and is starting back across the bridge.”

Langston held up the mike to his mouth. “All units, this is Assistant Director Langston. We’ll take him when he gets to the parking lot.”

“Ten-four.”

Langston opened the door and grabbed a handheld radio. “Let’s go.” Kalix and Kate got out. Langston and Kalix started walking quickly toward the path that Dellasanti had used to enter the park. More agents were pulling into the lot, getting out of their cars, and feeling the excitement of catching a spy red-handed; they hurried to intercept him. Kate leaned back against the car and let her mind drift off, wondering what Vail would do if he were there.

“The girl isn’t going with them!” The two men sat up straight in the same black SUV a hundred yards outside the parking lot, watching the activity through a small spotting scope.

“Patience,” the passenger said, and took the scope. “As the Americans say, ‘There are numerous ways to skin a cat.’ ” He flipped a toggle switch on the radio-transmission box sitting on the seat next to him, and a small red light lit up, indicating that it was armed.

As soon as Dellasanti stepped into the clearing, Langston barked into his portable radio, “Take him!”

The large man sitting in the passenger seat watched carefully through the scope as the agents started to rush at Dellasanti. Calmly he pressed the button.

Kate was still leaning on the car when the package under James Dellasanti’s coat exploded, cartwheeling his body through the air. All the agents charging at him dove to the ground as if expecting more detonations.

Kate ran to Dellasanti with her gun drawn, searching the perimeter for any further attack. She reached him first. He was facedown and motionless. She holstered her weapon and carefully rolled him over. A huge hole had been ripped through his overcoat. The blast had gone in the opposite direction as well. The left side of Dellasanti’s rib cage was gone, and Kate could see into his body cavity. There were bits of currency around the periphery of the wound, plus some kind of cloth that had been in the package. She checked his carotid artery for a pulse and then pushed up his eyelid. He was dead.

Suddenly realizing the extent of the brutal execution she had just witnessed, Kate collapsed into a sitting position on the ground. Her adrenaline subsided as quickly as it had risen, and her mind fell into a stupor. It took all her strength not to vomit.

Although Vail was at the off-site reading some of the missing-analyst reports that Bursaw had discreetly copied for him, his mind kept straying to the Calculus case. He tried to shrug the thoughts off, but still something in his subconscious was sending up a small flare of protest. He stepped over to the wall covered with the details of the case and started tracing the intricate web of clues that the Russian had left.

The phone rang. It was Bursaw. “Denise just called. Our guy came back.”

“Is he there now?”

“Have we ever been that lucky?”

“Your voice sounds like there’s good news in there somewhere.”

“She got his plate.”

“I hope you’re calling from your car.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

When Vail got into Bursaw’s Bureau car, he took a moment to read his friend’s face. There were tiny creases of excitement at the corners of his eyes. “I guess you think this is your guy.”

He pulled away from the curb. “My guy, I don’t know. But the guy who killed these prostitutes, yeah, I think this is him. As far as him being responsible for Sundra, it’s a leap from hookers to middle-class FBI analysts, even if they are all black. But I’ve got nothing else going right now.” He looked over at Vail. “Besides, this is like a time machine, you and me on the street, at night, freezing cold, trying to find some animal that has a million places to hide.”

“I think you’re remembering only the good parts.”

Bursaw laughed in disbelief. “Tell me you don’t miss it.”

“Not enough to reenlist.”

“So you’d rather be a bricklayer?”

“You sound like Kate. She thinks I should do something more meaningful, but I have no complaints. I’ve tried to figure out why. The way my old man shoved it down my throat when I was a kid, hating it would make more sense.”

“ ‘Having no complaints’ is a long way from being passionate about something,” Bursaw said.

As Bursaw slowed the car and started looking for the address from the plate Denise Washington had supplied, Vail said, “There’s our van,” pointing to the vehicle the prostitute had described.

Bursaw drove a block farther and turned around. “That’s a nasty-looking apartment building it’s parked in front of.”

“Are we going in?” Vail asked.

“We’d have to get real lucky to find him in there. The apartments won’t be marked and the bells never work. And no one in there is going to help the po-lice.” Bursaw checked his watch. “It’s after midnight, too late for him to go cruising. And I’m not going to sit on it all night.” He put the car in park, got out, and went to the trunk. Vail watched as he walked toward the van, a pair of pliers in one hand and a wire in the other. He started stripping the ends.

When he reached the van, Bursaw looked around casually before lifting the engine cover. In less than a minute, the van’s horn started blaring. He lowered the hood and walked back to the car. “Let’s just hope his apartment is close enough to the street for him to hear that.”

The two men watched the windows at the front of the apartment building as a couple of lights came on. Five minutes later a black man in his early thirties with a shaved head came out and unlocked the van’s door. They could see him pushing angrily on the horn, trying to get it to release.

Bursaw put the Bureau car in gear. “Get a big mouthful of this warm air, because if this moron runs, he’s all yours, Steve.”

They pulled up to the van, and Vail rolled down his window. “Can we give you a hand, sir?”

The man turned and started to say something. But then he saw that the two men were law enforcement. “No, that’s all right, I got it.” He disappeared around the front of his van and raised the hood.

As quietly as possible, Vail opened the car door. Bursaw said, “Hey, Steve, remember that time in Detroit when you left me outside to cover the back of that house for an hour in below-zero weather? Remember how sick I got?”

Vail looked back inside the car and saw Bursaw’s hand move to the siren switch with the impending ceremony of a symphony conductor. Vail started to laugh. “Come on, Luke, don’t. I’m begging you.”

“I know what a proponent of revenge you are, so this is for you.” Bursaw flicked the switch on and off rapidly. It gave a brief yelp. Vail hurried around the front of the van. The man turned quickly and slashed at Vail’s face with a screwdriver. Vail fell back out of the way, and it was all the delay the man needed to take off running.

Vail looked at Bursaw, who was laughing. “Keep laughing and I’ll let this guy get away.”

“It’s impossible for you to let anyone get away with anything,” Bursaw said. “The idiot agent’s code, remember?”

Vail took off at a dead run. Bursaw pulled the car up next to him and drove at the same speed. “A white man chasing a black man. Sounds like we’re about to have a violation of civil rights.”

Vail glanced over at him and tried to look angry.

“Appears like you’ve lost a step since Detroit. Get those knees up, Vail. I think you’re losing him. Knees up.”

Vail struggled not to laugh. It was hard enough running in the cold air. He watched as Bursaw pulled ahead and turned right.

Vail could still see the man almost a block ahead of him now, also turning right. Somehow Bursaw had guessed correctly. Vail pushed himself harder. When he got to the corner and turned, the man was gone. And there was no place to hide. Vail sprinted to the next corner and looked both ways. To the left, half a block up, Bursaw had the man pinned against the car and was applying some sort of jujitsu arm bar, causing the man to rise to his tiptoes and whimper in pain.

Vail ran up and handcuffed him. Bursaw pulled out the man’s wallet. “Mr. Jonathan Wilkins. Congratulations, you have just received a demonstration of the old hammer-and-anvil tactic, which goes all the way back to Alexander the Great.” When Wilkins didn’t say anything, Bursaw said, “Not a history buff, huh, Jonathan?”

“I didn’t do nothing,” Wilkins said.

“You know, Jonathan, I’m really starting to hate my job. In the fifteen years I’ve been with the FBI, not once have I arrested the right man.” Bursaw pushed him into the backseat, and Vail got in next to him. As they drove to the Washington Field Office, Vail advised him of his rights.

Vail watched the monitor as Bursaw started interviewing Wilkins. There was no table or desk between them, and the black agent was in the prisoner’s body space, their knees almost touching. Bursaw handed Wilkins the photographs of the three dead prostitutes. “Ever see these girls?”

Wilkins looked at the photos, trying to appear disinterested. “No.”

“They’re prostitutes. Ever go out with a prostitute?”

“Never paid for it in my life.”

Bursaw noted his overall slovenliness. “A real ladies’ man, huh, Jonathan?”

“I do all right.”

Bursaw held up the photos fanned out. “You’re sure you don’t know any of these women.” Wilkins kept his eyes down, refusing to look at the photos again. “Jonathan, look at me.” Without looking at the photos, Wilkins’s eyes found Bursaw’s. “This is very important. You’ve never seen any of these women before?”

“No.”

“Then I’m assuming it would not be possible for your semen to be found inside them.”

Vail could see the statement hit home. Wilkins’s posture pulled back defensively. It was unusual for a psychopathic killer to have such poor lying skills, but his reaction left little doubt that he had killed the three women.

“Unless somebody planted it there.”

Bursaw smiled crookedly. “Are you in the habit of giving your sperm to people who would want to frame you?”

“You said they’re prostitutes. Maybe I, you know, had a date with them or something.”

“So you have paid for it.”

“Sometimes. You know a man’s got to be a man. Don’t like to admit it, though.”

“I understand, Jonathan.” Bursaw leaned closer and lowered his voice. “Since we’re both telling the truth here, I’m going to tell you something you’ve got to promise not to tell anyone.”

“What?”

Bursaw leaned in another inch. “I don’t care about these three whores. I only care about this woman.” He showed Wilkins a photo of Sundra Boston.

This time Wilkins studied the photo before answering. “Man, her I don’t know.”

Bursaw looked up at the hidden camera and gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head, letting Vail know that it was apparent that Wilkins had nothing to do with Sundra Boston’s disappearance. “Take off your shirt, man.”

“I don’t have to,” Wilkins said.

“Did you want another jujitsu lesson?” Reluctantly, Wilkins pulled his shirt over his head while he glared at Bursaw. There was a three-inch scar on his chest that looked like it could have been caused by the screwdriver attack Denise Washington had described. “See, Jonathan, that scar was caused by a screwdriver, and we have the witness who did it to you. She’ll testify about you trying to tie her up in the van, like the other three were. And we’ll find their DNA in your van and on those ropes, which I’m sure you didn’t bother to change each time. I’m sorry, man, it’s over.” Bursaw let it all sink in for a few seconds and then said, “But like I told you, I don’t care about those three, just this one.” Again he held up Sundra’s photo. “Tell you what I’ll do. We have her killer’s DNA, so if you’ll give me a sample of yours to prove that you weren’t involved in her death, you and I will be done.”

“I’ll give you DNA, hair, blood whatever you want,” Wilkins said, pointing at Sundra’s photo. “But you can’t use it for the others.”

“Agreed.” Bursaw opened his briefcase and took out a cheek-swab kit, extracting a long Q-tip. “Open up.”

Wilkins opened his mouth, and Bursaw got the swab to within an inch of Wilkins’s cheek before breaking it in half and throwing it on the table. “You’ve convinced me, Jonathan. You had nothing to do with Sundra’s disappearance.”

“Then I can go?”

“Not just yet.” Bursaw stood him up and handcuffed him. “I think the Metro police are going to want to talk to you.”

It was a little after 4 A.M. when Vail and Bursaw dropped Wilkins at the Washington Metropolitan Police homicide unit. Forty-five minutes later, Luke Bursaw pulled up in front of the off-site. “Any idea what you’re going to do now?” Vail asked.

“Sleep and not think about it for a while. Do you have any idea how much longer you’re going to be around?”

“I think this other thing is getting close to being resolved.” Vail handed him a key. “In case something comes up, take this. The alarm code is 9111.”

“Does that mean it’s going well or it’s going badly?”

“We’re making progress. Unfortunately, it’s in the form of one disaster after another.”

“Just remember, when it comes to the government, disasters aren’t necessarily bad. If nothing else, it means somebody is doing something.”

Vail got out and started toward the door when Bursaw hit the siren with another brief yelp.

Vail had started to undress when the phone rang. It was almost six in the morning. Chances that this call was good news were not high.

It was Kate. “Dellasanti’s dead.”

“How?”

“There was a bomb in the package. As we were closing in on him, it exploded.”

“Did he set it off?”

“We don’t know. It didn’t go off until he saw us coming. So either he committed suicide to keep from going to prison or Calculus put it in the package. Which doesn’t make any sense.”

“Or maybe the Russians did it to make sure the thread between the pieces of evidence would be broken once and for all. Then we couldn’t go any further.”

Kate said, “I hadn’t thought of that. It’s definitely a possibility, the way they’ve been killing their sources.”

“Where are you now?”

“I’m still at the park. Langston’s got three forensics teams here processing the scene, and we’re just about done. He’s ordered all the autopsy and lab work be done by noon so we can get a couple of hours’ sleep. There’s a meeting in his office, at noon, to analyze everything. He wants you there.”

“Okay.”

“Really? I thought you’d take the opportunity to ride off into the sunset, yelling ‘I told you so’ over your shoulder.”

“Dellasanti would be just as dead if I had been there. Did any of the evidence survive?”

“I don’t think any of the money did. We’re not sure about the documents. Something was blown into Dellasanti’s body cavity. We decided to let the medical examiner extract it.”

“Are you doing all right?”

“I’m seeing a few more bodies than I’d like, but I’m fine.”

“I’ll see you at noon.”