Unwanted Company - Barbara Seranella (32 page)

Ellen extended her hand, all eyes. "Now a girl
would feel real safe with you," she said.

"Why don't we all go in the kitchen,"
Caroline said, casting a nervous glance down the hallway at the open
bedroom door.

"I'll make some coffee."

After they were all seated around the kitchen table,
Munch turned to Ellen. "Tell them what you saw," she said.

"Where would you like me to start?" Ellen
asked.

"
Pick it up from the bar," Munch said. She
noticed the stack of official-looking police documents in the center
of the table.

"What bar is this?" Mace asked.

"Some miserable little hole in the wall in
Tijuana," Ellen said. "I was going to wait in the car, but
Raleigh insisted I come inside."

"
Raleigh Ward?" Mace asked.

"
Yes, and that other fellow, Victor."

"Victor Draicu?" Mace asked.

"Just Victor. I never got the last name,"
Ellen answered, casting a look at Munch as if to ask, Does this man
want to hear me out, or not? Munch shrugged an answer.

"
This man? " Mace asked, holding up the
photograph Steve had given him.

"Yes, that's him," Ellen said, then pointed
a second man out. "And Raleigh here."

Mace took the picture back and stared at it. "One
of these men is Raleigh Ward?"

Munch looked at the picture, too. "Yep, he's the
guy right here. With the drink in his hand."

Mace took a pen and circled the image of Raleigh
Ward.

"
Go on," he said.

"
Finally," Munch muttered.

"
Well, I wasn't going to have anything to
drink," Ellen began, shooting an apologetic glance at Munch.
Munch raised her hand and shook her head. They'd been through all
that in the car. Whatever her intentions had been, she'd blown it.
Now all she could do was start oven hopefully that much wiser.

"There was another little gal who joined our
party," Ellen continued. "A working girl. Victor took a
shine to her."

"
How old a girl?" Mace asked, exchanging
looks with Munch. She nodded affirmation.

"
Same one," she said.

Mace sorted through his papers until he found a
photograph. "Is this the same girl?" he asked, showing it
to Ellen.

She gasped.

Munch was pretty sure her reaction was genuine. Even
though Munch had told her about it all, there was nothing like
staring violent death in the face. She looked up at Caroline, whose
eyes were moist, rimmed in red.

"
Bastards," Caroline hissed.

Mace took her hand in his.

"
Her name was Giovanna," Ellen said. "And
we're going to get the bastard that did it."

"
I'm not so sure about that," Mace said.
"Victor Draicu has diplomatic immunity, and Raleigh Ward has
disappeared."

"
Oh," Ellen said, smiling sideways at
Munch, "we might be able to turn over the rock he's hiding
under."

"
What are you talking about?" Mace said.

"
Tell them about—" Munch's words were cut
off by the thunder of helicopter blades.

"
Oh, shit," Ellen said. "Here we go
again." Her words were followed by a pounding on the door that
woke up Asia and set the dogs to barking with all their teeth
showing.

"
FBI," a man's voice boomed from the other
side of the door. "Open up."

Mace and Cassiletti took out their badges. Mace
pointed for the women to stand in a corner of the kitchen, then
strode to the front of the house. He opened the front door with his
badge prominently displayed.

"What's this about?" he asked.

"We have arrest warrants for Ellen Summers and
Miranda Mancini," a sandy-haired agent said.

"Can I see them and your identification? Mace
asked.

Asia emerged sleepy-eyed from the bedroom and went to
stand at Munch's legs. A sharp rap was heard at the back door, and
Munch saw the faces of two more men clothed in SWAT gear.

"Mom?" Asia asked.

Munch bent down and picked her up. "It's okay,
honey," she said, smoothing a hand over the girl's sleep-damp
curls. Asia snuggled her cheek into the hollow at the base of Munch's
neck.

Mace frowned as he looked over the paperwork the FBI
agent had handed him.

"
What are the charges?" Caroline asked.

"Parole violation, crossing interstate lines to
avoid prosecution." Munch looked at her friend with true
sympathy. Would she be going back to prison so soon? A

"
What about Munch?" Caroline said.

Mace looked at her, puzzled. "Kidnapping."

Munch felt the floor lurch, then she realized it was
her knees collapsing. She caught herself before she went all the way
down. Asia's hands clutched her arms.

"We'll be taking the child, too," the agent
said. Another woman entered the room.

"
I'm Mrs. Flamm," she said. "I'm with
Social Services."

"
Wait," Caroline said. "I'm an officer
of the court. I work with social services all the time. Leave the
child with me until this misunderstanding is straightened out."

"
I'm afraid those aren't my orders, ma'am,"
the sandy-haired agent said.

"
Mommy?" Asia asked.

Mrs. Flamm reached for her. The FBI agent produced a
set of handcuffs.

Munch blocked out everything and everyone else in the
room as she sought the eyes of the child she loved more than anything
or anybody in the world. "Don't listen to them," she said.
"It's not true. Remember, I love you."
 

CHAPTER 26

Raleigh picked Victor up in his wheezing Vega. Victor
eyed the car with disdain. "Get in," Raleigh said. "This
is it."

Victor threw his suitcase into the backseat, cast one
more disparaging look at the faded upholstery, then lowered himself
into the passenger seat. "This is the best you could do?"
he asked.

"
Low-profile," Raleigh said. "You've
gotta slam the door or it doesn't latch."

Victor pulled his door shut with a resounding crunch.
Even though he was ready for it, Raleigh still winced as the
vibration and sound played off his bones. He was always extra
sensitive like this when the end of a mission was at hand.

"
Where to?"

"The bus station in Santa Monica," Victor
said. "It's in a locker."

Raleigh waited in the parking lot of the bus station
while Victor went inside to retrieve his goods. After ten anxious
minutes of breathing diesel exhaust fumes, Raleigh was ready to go in
after the guy. But then Victor emerged, carrying a card board box and
smiling.

"
You want to put it in the trunk?" Raleigh
asked, slipping a mint into his mouth and wishing he had something
stronger.

"No. Where is the sixth can?" Victor asked.
"I cannot make the delivery short."

Raleigh reached into the bag of groceries in the
backseat and removed the plutonium-laden coffee can that would
complete the case. Victor inspected the seams carefully. He would
find nothing amiss, Raleigh knew. The engineers who secreted the
miniature homing device into the welds at the base of the can didn't
make mistakes. They knew lives depended on their work being flawless.

Victor placed this can with the rest of the case and
got into the car with the cardboard box balanced on his lap. The
exchange was to be made at crowded Pauley Pavilion. It was the
perfect venue for this sort of intrigue. The Olympic Committee had
voted to have no metal detectors or bomb-sniffing dogs there. The
thinking was that Los Angeles was not going to appear to the world to
be a police state.

Raleigh handed Victor a green press badge. Victor
clipped the badge to his collar.

"
So this is it," Victor said.

"
Are you okay?" Raleigh asked.

"
What is it they call this?" Victor said.
"The first day of the rest of my life."

Raleigh couldn't help but
smile. He didn't know how right he was.

* * *

Ellen and Munch were handcuffed and taken away in
separate gray sedans.

"Where are we going?" Munch asked. She had
lost sight of the car Ellen was in.

"Downtown," the agent in the passenger seat
said.

"I want to talk to whoever's in charge,"
Munch said. She twisted so that the handcuffs weren't digging into
her back. The two men in the front seat exchanged amused looks.

"
You do, huh?" the agent in the passenger
seat said. "Why don't you tell me whatever it is you want to
say, and I'll deliver the message."

"
I'll wait," she said. She looked out the
window, thinking how long it had been since she'd had her hands bound
behind her and her freedom in the control of another. She'd hoped all
this stuff was behind her. Someone had told her once that she would
have to repeat sober everything she'd done drinking and using. She'd
thought they were speaking more metaphorically.

They took her to a sprawling three-story building
made of concrete and glass with the California state and American
flags flanking the entrance. Her captors drove around to the side of
the building, to where an electronic gate slid open. The driveway
leading down to the underground parking lot was dark and angled
steeply. A yellow sign above the entrance designated the building as
a fallout shelter. Inside the black circle with the three inverted
yellow triangles was another smaller yellow ring and the words
CAPACITY 1730 also printed in yellow.

The garage smelled of exhaust fumes. If the radiation
didn't get you, the carbon dioxide would. The passenger agent came
around to her door and opened it.

"Let's go," he said, grabbing her arm to
help her out of the car.

She shrugged him off and stood on her own. They led
her to a small interrogation room and sat her in a straight-backed
chair. The walls were lined with acoustical board. Were they keeping
sounds in or out? she wondered uneasily. There was no wall of two-way
mirror, nothing as obvious as that. She read the graffiti scratched
into the metal desk in front of her and waited for her interrogators
to return.

After what seemed like an hour—the room had no
clock—two different agents unlocked and entered the door.

The first fed, a thin blond man, showed her a birth
certificate. It was for a live birth of one Asia Garillo. The mother
was listed as Karen Parker, the father Jonathan Garillo.

"
I don't see your name anywhere on this
document, Ms. Mancini," Blondie said.

"
It's bogus," Munch answered, knowing that
Karen had given birth at home and never registered Asia's entry into
the world.

"
There are tests now," the other agent
said, stroking his small goatee.

"
DNA," Blondie said. He rested his knuckles
on the desk top between them. "Ever hear of it?"

Munch remained silent. She was sure one of these guys
was going to tell her.

"
Every living thing has distinctive markers in
its cellular construction," Whiskers said. "Those markers
come from two sources, the mother and the father. What do you suppose
we'll find if we test you and your so-called daughter?"

"
The deal was," Munch said through gritted
teeth, "I keep my mouth shut about how a certain situation was
handled, and in exchange everybody lives their own lives."

"Don't forget the money," Whiskers said.

The money they referred to was from an FBI fund
earmarked for confidential informants. Jonathan Garillo, known to his
friends as Sleazejohn, had been killed in an FBI scheme to catch a
group of dope—smuggling bikers. Asia had been only six months old.
Karen Parker, Asia's birth mother, preceded Sleaze in death by two
months from a drug overdose.

Munch had helped bring the case against the bikers to
a successful close. All she wanted out of the deal originally was to
ensure Asia's safety. But the more she learned about how things had
gone down, how reckless the feds could be with the lives of others,
the angrier she'd become. "You make it sound like I was the one
to do something dirty," she said. "The money was for Asia."

"
And you used that money to buy a limousine,"
Blondie said, showing her a copy of the DMV receipt.

"
I've got some damaging information on you guys,
too," she said, in one last ditch attempt to gain some footing.

"
I don't think blackmailing the government will
help you win any custody battles," Whiskers said.

"
What do you want?" she asked, feeling her
eyes shut with sudden, overwhelming exhaustion.

"
Your cooperation," Blondie said. "You
and your friend have managed to get yourself in the middle of a
matter that involves national, indeed worldwide, security."

"Maybe we can find a way to avoid a lot of grief
for all of us," she said.