First to Kill (13 page)

“Okay…”

“Your turn. In a single word, why aren’t you close to anyone?”

“That’s brutal.”

“It’s your game.”

She was silent for several miles and Nathan started to think she wasn’t going to answer. He thought her word would be
commitment
or
dedication
, something along those lines. She was married to the FBI and she couldn’t—or more accurately, wouldn’t—take time to form a meaningful relationship. Her answer surprised him.

“Fear,” she said, staring straight ahead. “Maybe you’ll change your mind about dinner.”

“Look at the bright side. Think of all the money we just saved,” he said.

“Seeing expensive shrinks?”

He nodded.

“I think my word was a little more honest than yours. Want to try again?” she asked.

“Not really, but I believe in playing fair.” When she didn’t say anything, he took a deep breath and jumped off the precipice. “Okay… My word is
resentment
.”

“Well, now we’re getting somewhere. What’s your best childhood memory of him?”

Nathan didn’t hesitate with an answer, because it was one of the few good memories he had, and he could probably count them on one hand. “We were fishing. I don’t remember where, some lake up near Yosemite. I reeled in a big one, or what seemed like a big one, you know, to a kid. He was so proud of me. I remember his smile.” He turned toward the window, grateful for the dark interior. “You’re way out of my league, Holly. After ten minutes, you’ve hit the bull’s-eye with me. Am I really that transparent?”

“Not at all. Just truthful.”

“This isn’t easy to talk about.”

“I appreciate you’re confiding in me. To be honest, I expected you to be all business.”

“I thought the same thing about you. I thought all you’d want to talk about was the Bridgestones.”

“I do want to talk about them, but it’s a three-hour drive up to the cabin. I’ve never met anyone like you.”

Nathan said nothing.

“It’s a compliment.”

“If you say so.”

“How did you know about the buried money?”

“I didn’t. Not with certainty, but I’m betting the Bridgestones have been dealing in Semtex for awhile. They obviously don’t take checks as payment, so they need to move huge amounts of cash around and it’s not easy to do without someone on the inside of a financial institution. They can’t just fly overseas with suitcases full of cash. They’d need someone they really trust to launder it. They probably do it through bogus third-party loans, so they’d need someone to process the transactions. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have numbered accounts in the Caymans or Switzerland or wherever. They’ve probably been making lots of smaller deposits over the years.”

“So how do we catch them?”

“You probably won’t.”

“If we could, how would we do it?”

He thought about it for a few seconds. “Follow the money trail.”

“It’s a dead end, we’ve looked at it.”

“You have to find their insider.”

Holly thought about that for awhile. “Any ideas who it might be?”

“I’d start with Leonard Bridgestone’s military background. Someone he knew from the Gulf War, someone who’s now working for a financial institution. Whoever it is, he’s getting a percentage for his services. There would be signs. Someone who’s living beyond his means. A huge house. Expensive cars. A stock portfolio, those kind of things. Things that can’t be explained by his reported salary. If nothing turns up, then do the same with Ernie.”

“Good thoughts.”

“Find their insider, and you’ll have a better chance of finding them. If it’s someone they’re blackmailing, or threatening, it’ll be nearly impossible. I suppose you could start with local branches, but it’s likely they travel out of state to make the deposits. Probably Nevada, where large cash transactions are common. Harv and I had a similar situation once. This woman was getting a divorce and suspected her husband was hiding money. His old college buddy had managed to launder just under three million dollars just like I described.”

“I thought you guys ran a security company.”

“We do, but we’ll take on private investigative work too.”

“So how did it turn out?”

“We blackmailed him.”

“You serious?”

“Yep. When we confronted him, he was really belligerent until Harv showed him the error of his ways.”

“Do I want to know what Harvey, you know… did to him?”

“No. At any rate, he wrote a check for just over two million dollars to stay out of jail. He was worth ten times that on paper, but as they say, cash is king. She offered us ten percent, but we only accepted three.”

“That was generous of you guys.”

“We made money on the deal.”

“Still, you turned down a lot.”

He shrugged. “It didn’t seem right taking that much. We were doing okay. Besides, she referred us to several new clients, who in turn referred more. It snowballed. In no time we were turning down jobs because we didn’t have the staff to keep up. There’s another possibility with the Bridgestones.”

“What?”

“They’ll come after you. Not you literally, but the FBI. Under your banner, I killed their little brother. They can’t be real happy about that.”

“You think they’ll try to avenge him.”

“It’s a possibility I wouldn’t discount too much.”

“Based on what those guys were peddling up there, that’s a scary thought.”

“If I were you, I’d double my security measures for awhile. Maybe you should take that vacation. Get out of town for awhile.”

“If anything happened, I couldn’t live with it.”

“They could be long gone. They might not give a damn. I suppose it comes down to two choices. Either they’ll cut and run right away, or they’ll cut and run after avenging their kid brother. There’s no way to know which.”

“Which do you think?”

He took a breath and sighed. “At the compound during the raid, one of the brothers, I’m pretty sure it was Ernie, made a mad dash across a hundred and fifty yards of open ground to rescue his little brother after he knew SWAT teams were present. I was about to light him up when the other brother took a few shots at us. Either that was the most reckless act of stupidity I’ve ever seen, or the most selfless act of bravery. I’m leaning toward bravery, but it’s probably a little of both.”

“Then you think they’ll try something before they flee?”

“I’d say there’s a good chance.”

“Against us, the FBI?”

He nodded. “They aren’t terrorists, Holly. They don’t have some fanatical ideology of religion or hatred driving them like Al Qaeda. It’s all about money. If they try something, it won’t be random. They won’t bomb a city bus or train station or sporting event. They’ll go after whoever hurt them. They don’t have a lot of time so they’ll pick a target of opportunity, something that doesn’t require a prolonged surveillance. Who knows, they might already have something planned. It wouldn’t surprise me if they did.”

“What can we do?”

“That’s just it, there isn’t much you can do except increase security. When it comes right down to it, we’ve always lived in a fragile society. Chaos is only a major disaster away. You remember the New York City blackout in the late seventies?”

“Sort of.”

“I was reading about it online recently. Rioting and looting were out of control. Over a thousand fires were lit, entire city blocks torched. When it was all said and done, nearly four thousand people had been arrested and three-hundred million dollars’ worth of damage had been done. There was no hurricane or earthquake or flood. The lights went out. Everybody was pointing fingers at the city, saying it should’ve been better prepared, should’ve done this, should’ve done that. The bottom line, it’s impossible to protect society from itself. It’s been proven over and over throughout time.”

“That’s a pretty bleak picture.”

“Don’t get me wrong. If you do the math, only one in a thousand people acted disgracefully that night. It was a small minority of opportunistic criminal types that caused all the problems. The vast majority of the city’s residents acted honorably, helping each other, lending candles and flashlight batteries to strangers. Disasters define character. I have no doubt you’d be at your best when things are at their worst.”

“I’d like to believe that.”

“Believe it. You didn’t join the FBI for the money. There’s a million jobs out there with better pay and fewer hours. Well, maybe not a million, but you know what I mean. You want to look back on your life someday and know that you made a difference, made the world a better place. Hold on to it, Holly. Hold it close and never let it go.”

“Like I said, I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

“I’m no one special. I made a choice not to dwell in the past. Everyone has tragedy in their life at one time or another, it’s how they deal with it that defines them. I don’t hate the Nicaraguan people for what happened to me. I used to, but I don’t anymore. Should a rape victim hate all men for the rest of her life? Anger and bitterness are normal feelings, but they’re like cancer if you can’t control them.”

“I’ve never been tested. I can’t honestly say how I’d deal with it.”

“No one can.”

The rest of the ride from Oroville into the mountains went by quickly. Highway 70 followed a steep river canyon. They crossed bridges and navigated through short tunnels blasted through solid granite. Areas of smooth water reflected the moonlight. On the opposite side of the canyon wall, railroad tracks paralleled the highway. Every so often, they passed a small hydroelectric power plant, their square forms contrasting the random shapes of the rocky terrain. Although he was tired from all the flying and lack of sleep, he found conversation with Holly relaxing. She had a good sense of humor and despite the situation with Ortega’s grandson, kept a positive outlook.

“This is a beautiful drive in daylight,” Nathan said. “Harv and I drove it the day of the raid.”

“I’ve been up here a few times. It’s a designated scenic highway.”

The road continued a gradual climb into the mountains, winding its way up the rocky canyon into a pine forest.

Her radio crackled. It was Henning. “We’re coming up on the turn. We should kill our headlights.”

“Copy,” she said.

All three vehicles went dark. Henning, still in the lead, made a left turn at the intersection of a narrow dirt road that peeled off the highway to the north. There was no street sign associated with the road, just barbed-wire fencing on either side. Massive trees lining both sides of the track screened a half moon low on the eastern horizon. After traveling about a hundred yards, the caravan came to a stop and everyone piled out. Muted in eerie silence, the surrounding forest lacked the symphony of crickets he’d heard back at the farmhouse. The only sound present was the lonely whisper of wind through the pines. It was cool up here, low forties. Nathan guessed the elevation to be around 7,000 feet. He’d kept track of the Caltrans signposts on the way up. The last one they’d passed indicated six thousand feet, and they’d climbed for several miles after that.

They formed a huddle next to Holly’s sedan. Nathan noticed the dome lights remained dark when the doors of the FBI vehicles were opened. He watched Holly pull on a dark-blue coat with large FBI letters on the back. Henning made sure to position himself between himself and Holly.

Henning relayed what the Bridgestone cousins had told him. “According to our guests, the entrance to the property’s another thousand yards up the track. It’s the first locked gate on the right side. The cabin’s another five hundred yards beyond the gate. The entire parcel is fenced with barbed wire. I recommend cutting it at the far corner and approaching from there.”

Keeping her voice low, she addressed Collins and Dowdy. “Okay, I want a visual recon of the cabin from a safe distance first. Gear up. We’ll sit tight until you report back to us.”

The SWAT agents hustled over to Gifford’s sedan and popped the trunk.

“There could be more claymores out there,” Nathan offered. “Make sure your guys watch closely for trip wires. With all the deer around, it’s unlikely, but you never know.”

“Good thought,” she said.

Gifford nodded and walked over to the SWAT agents. Several minutes later, Collins and Dowdy were ready to go. Nathan saw they had the same night-vision devices he and Harv used, except theirs were mounted on their helmets in tandem. They’d have perfect depth perception using two scopes rather than one. The boom microphones extending from the sides of their helmets nearly touched their lips. Nathan felt a pang of envy. He wanted to go with them, but knew Holly would never allow it.

“Okay, recon only,” Holly said. “Do not engage if anyone’s there. Return fire only if fired upon.”

Nathan watched the two SWAT agents walk down the track and vanish into the blackness.

Holly removed her handheld radio from her hip, turned the volume down, and keyed the button. “Dowdy, radio check… Collins…” She turned toward Henning. “Did they say anything useful on the ride up here?”

“Not really. I tried them a couple times. I think they’re really pissed about the cash. I’m sure they had plans for it.”

“Beer money,” she said.

Nathan listened, but his thoughts were elsewhere. Something was bugging him, gnawing at the back of his mind like a festering splinter. Something about the farmhouse. The garage. He couldn’t place it. He also kept listening for the telltale blast of a claymore detonating out of the darkness.
Be careful out there, guys
.

“What do we do with our guests after this?” Henning asked.

“We take them back and release them,” Holly answered. “There’s still a possibility their cousins will try to make contact. We keep watching them.”

“Better let me have a chat with them first,” Nathan said.

“Okay…” she said.

“I, or rather we,” he said, nodding toward Harv, “need to convince them that reporting any of this would be a bad idea.”

“We did bend the rules a little,” Holly said.

“A little,” Nathan echoed.

“Do you honestly think they’ll keep quiet about this?” Henning asked.

“There are over two hundred bones in the human body,” Nathan said.