“Of course,” Ryan said. He’d been under protection one way or another for decades, first from John Clark and Domingo Chavez in the CIA, and now the Secret Service. Even so, he’d never get completely used to someone following him around like this.
Jim Langford, another agent on the day shift, joined them before they reached the residence elevator. Only then did Montgomery move forward as Ryan had requested.
“What can I do for you, Mr. President?”
“I’d be interested in your opinion.”
Montgomery looked mildly pleased. “On what, sir?”
“On what?” Ryan frowned. “You were there in the meeting. China, the recent events in the news. Whether I should invoke the Ryan Doctrine and . . . You get the picture. Some people under protection may figure the Secret Service is wallpaper, but you hear things. You have ideas. I can see it in your eyes.”
Special Agent Langford stared at the elevator buttons, unwilling to catch the eye of his boss or his boss’s boss.
Montgomery gave a sly smile. “I’m just a knuckle dragger, Mr. President. You have some supremely intelligent people in your cabinet.”
“Cut the shit, Gary,” Ryan said. “You guys are worthy of a lot more than ‘trust and confidence.’ There’s at least one of you in half the meetings I attend. You can’t tell me you agents don’t sit around down there below the Oval Office in W16 and talk about how you would handle things if our roles were reversed.”
Montgomery nodded slowly, exchanging a look with Special Agent Langford as all three men stepped on the elevator.
“What?” Ryan asked. “You’re thinking if the roles were reversed, I couldn’t protect you?”
Montgomery shook his head. “Not at all, Mr. President. I was just thinking that I’ve been doing this job for nineteen years and no one I’ve protected has ever asked my opinion about anything other than their own security.”
Ryan gave him an isn’t-it-obvious shrug. “You’re a smart guy,” he said. “I’m always interested in the opinion of smart people.”
“That’s kind of you, boss,” Montgomery said as the elevator door opened. “But it doesn’t mean I’m going to go easy on you in the gym.”
16
Kelsey Callahan pushed her chair away from the table, if only to put more distance between herself and the slimy little shit on the other side. Unlike the dark concrete-and-steel rooms depicted by Hollywood, the interrogation room at the Dallas federal building was carpeted and well lit. The table was veneer rather than real wood, purchased off a list of approved vendors by the General Services Administration. In this instance, the table and four chairs that surrounded it came from prison industries at the Federal Correctional Institution in Sheridan, Oregon. The taxpayers saved a little money, federal prisoners made a little money, and Callahan’s ass hurt from sitting in a piece-of-crap chair that threw her back into a helpless and uncomfortable knees-up position.
Trooper Sergeant Derrick Bourke sat next to her at the table. If the angle of his chair bothered him, he kept it to himself.
Eddie Feng was handcuffed in front and chained to a steel ring lag-bolted to the concrete floor underneath the institutional carpet. Callahan’s line of questions had seen his ashen pallor go nearly purple. Saliva foamed at the corners of his lips and his left eye twitched as if he were sending messages in Morse code.
“I am telling you,” Feng said for the tenth time. “I didn’t sleep with that girl.”
Callahan rolled her eyes. “But you already admitted that you did.”
Feng threw his head back, rattling his cuffs beneath the table. “How long do you really think anybody spends with one of those kids? Fifteen, twenty minutes, tops. I paid Parrot for two hours, just to keep her away from the other guys at the party.”
“How gentlemanly of you to keep her for yourself.”
“I told you we didn’t do anything!”
Callahan gave a little shrug. She had the upper hand now. “That’s not what Blanca says.”
“Well, she’s lying.” Feng wagged his head. “And anyway, she told me her name was Magdalena.”
Callahan sat up straighter in spite of the chair. “Magdalena?”
“Whatever her name is. She’s just a kid, you know. I felt sorry for her.” Feng’s eyes flicked to the mirrored wall. “Who’s back there? Who’s watching us?”
“Don’t you worry about that,” Bourke said.
Callahan banged on the table to get Feng’s attention. “Tell me about this USB drive.”
“I lost the damn thing . . .” He looked up, coming to a sudden realization. “If you have it, Magdalena . . . or Blanca, must have stolen it. She did, didn’t she? After what I did for her . . .”
Callahan just looked at him.
Feng continued to study the one-way mirror. “Could I get some coffee or something?”
Callahan shot a sideways glance at Bourke. “He makes a lot of demands for a kiddie diddler.”
Feng’s head snapped around. “Stop calling me that!”
“What do you prefer?” Bourke said. “Pedophile?”
“I’d prefer you called me Eddie,” he said. “I’m a reporter for True Word Daily. Just look it up online.” He was pleading now. “Seriously, guys. I’m in the middle of a very important story and had to appear to engage in certain behaviors in order to get them to trust me enough to get access to the right people. It was my legend. You know, a legend, like if you were going undercover.”
“I know what a legend is, Eddie,” Callahan said. This guy was convincing. He’d even managed to get the snot flowing, a sign his tears were probably real. But he was looking at some serious jail time, so he was obviously going to be distraught. It didn’t mean he was telling anything close to the truth about his involvement with Blanca Limón. Men who assaulted kids were very often the weepiest sad sacks on the planet.
Callahan pantomimed drinking motions toward the mirror. If it took a little coffee to get this bird to start singing, so be it. More often than not, there was a great deal of smiling and nodding right before she stuck it in and broke it off.
“Okay, Eddie,” she said. “I’ll get you something to drink, but you have to tell us a few things. For starters, I need you to give me the location of the party you were at when you met Blanca. She was with another girl, and that girl is still missing. I’m worried something happened to her.”
“Sure.” Eddie nodded quickly, seemingly eager to help. “I’m not sure of the address, but it’s in South Dallas. Anyway, she’s not there. These parties are transient. They bring the girls in vans and cars and then take them away afterward. Blanca and the others all got carted off by a guy they called Reggie right before I left.”
Callahan shot a look at Bourke. Feng’s description of the guy who had Blanca matched up, anyway.
“I don’t know,” Eddie continued. “If she’s not with Reggie, I’d say Matarife has her.”
Sergeant Bourke looked up from his notebook. “Matarife?”
“That would be my guess,” Feng said. He was already working on the map, both hands moving with the pen across the yellow legal pad since they were cuffed together.