An hour and a half later, ERT arrived with a canine unit not far behind. The car held no human remains, and a cadaver dog working a broad area around the vehicle didn’t scent on anything. At dawn I drove the dusty road back out to the highway. I had various ideas about why Mondari’s car was out here, but nothing quite explained it. In a café up the highway, I ate scrambled eggs and toast and drank enough coffee to carry me into midmorning, then drove back to Vegas and met Lacey at Denny Mondari’s apartment.
The manager unlocked the door for us and we looked for signs of violence, but didn’t see any. A tuna sandwich had dried on a plate in the kitchen. Next to it sat a glass of warm flat beer. The eyeglasses Mondari often wore were alongside the plate. In a bedroom was a half-packed suitcase. In the bathroom in the big master suite, I saw blond hair dye in the shower and condoms stacked four high on a counter next to an unzipped Dopp kit with an electric razor lying next to it.
“What do you think?” Shah asked.
“That it looks staged. It’s as if he saw us coming and put some props out and left.”
“Doesn’t the torched car worry you?”
“Neither the dogs nor ERT found anything.”
“Did Mondari burn his own car?”
“No, but he might sacrifice it to make it look like something else happened to him. I mean, torch the car, disappear, and leave us guessing.”
“Do you really think Denny Mondari did this on purpose?”
“Not really, but I can’t rule it out. It would be like him. It’s his way.” I gestured around at the room and knew I was just talking. “He knew we’d be in here if he disappeared again. The sandwich, beer, and glasses are just a little too neat.”
I glanced over at her.
“I have a bad feeling, Lacey, but I can’t go there yet. If Mondari believes the cartel came for his tech geeks, he has to assume the geeks gave up his name. Let’s widen our search for Catalangelo again. We’re missing something.”
“I’ve tried everything.”
“I know an undercover DEA agent who might be able to help us. Maybe he’s heard the name.” I pulled out my phone. “I’ll call him.”
35
The Neptune Society phoned later that morning. I told the polite woman that I’d sign and scan the papers today, but that my niece wanted to see the bodies so cremation would be delayed.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, sir.”
I didn’t either and sat thinking about it for several minutes after hanging up. I missed Venuti’s approach behind me. He pulled a chair over and sat across from me.
“How are you feeling?” He asked. “I saw you limping when you came in.”
The limp was harder to control when I was tired. Sometimes I worried it would cost me my job, or they’d finally box me into limited duty. I’d get a “we don’t want to lose you” speech, and then no more badge or gun and I’d become a back-of-the-room guy with clean clothes and glasses, who spent his days in front of a computer or in meetings. Not for me.
But the FBI wasn’t about wheelchairs, grab bars, or handicapped agents. The Bureau was about reinforced gates and steel bollards planted in 7,000 psi concrete, deep enough to where a bomb-laden truck couldn’t ram through. It was about agents who fit an image. Venuti never let me forget that I’d volunteered as an SABT and gone to Iraq. A career choice, he called it, and maybe he saw it that way, but at the time the army was overwhelmed with bombings in Baghdad and asking for help.
After volunteering for bomb-tech training at Quantico and becoming a special agent bomb tech, I made three trips to Iraq during the period when the army was asking for help. On my third tour, and after all the worry about IED Alley and Route Irish, a booby-trapped motorcycle had caught us on foot in a market in Baghdad. Three of my team and seventeen Iraqis in the market died.
In Frankfurt a lacerated lobe of my liver was removed, along with my spleen. Then came multiple reconstruction surgeries, skin grafts, healing, adhesions, and more surgery. The scars on my lower back aren’t something you flash at a public beach, and the initial FBI response was to offer me limited duty, meaning no badge or gun in the field. Or option two, take early retirement and try to find a new job to cover the hole left by the smaller pension. I could have dealt with the money, but not losing my career. I leaned on connections and spent my limited duty with the best bomb techs in the FBI. I commuted between here and headquarters, and I learned the bomb makers’ craft. When I qualified for active duty here, I landed on the Domestic Terrorism Squad.
Problem was, I didn’t fit the FBI image anymore. I had passed the physical but walked with a limp when tired. Rumor was, other agents avoided being paired with me because it was dangerous. Maybe that was true. Maybe it wasn’t. But this much was true: I worked alone a lot. The autonomy Thorpe gave me for this investigation I took routinely.
I knew in some ways Venuti and perhaps others were waiting on my career to wind down. Venuti may outlast me. He might see my retirement as a victory for the Bureau way of doing things, but Beatty had nailed me. He’d been right on when he said at Willie McCool that I’m a Fed to the core. I am, and I’m after the bomb makers of the world. That’s my mission.
“You and I are the old men around here,” Venuti said.
“Lay off the limp.”