Double Jeopardy (30 page)

Of course. Travis had noticed the similarity in their features before.

“When we were growing up, we did everything together. We were the best of friends. She was always frail, timid. I was her protector. I was supposed to look out for her.

“I remember a time when we were in the fifth or sixth grade. I was supposed to walk her home, but I got sidetracked with some of my friends on the football team. Some bully hassled her on the way home. Actually, I think he had a crush on her but didn’t know how to show it. Anyway, he pushed her down and scraped up her knee. She ran home crying. She scared so easily. When I saw her, I put my arms around her and said, ‘I’m sorry, Mary Ann. I should have been with you. I’ll never let anyone hurt you ever again.’ ”

Cavanaugh gently laid her hand on his shoulder. “Curran, you’re not to blame for what happened to your sister.”

“Oh?” His eyes burned into hers. “What do you know about it? I was visiting her when it happened. We had shared a pizza earlier that evening. I walked her back to her sorority house and heard her say she was going to that bar to find her roommate.” He pressed his fingers against his temples. “I could have gone with her. She invited me. But it was late, and I was tired. So I left her alone. Just when she needed me most.”

The three of them were quiet for several protracted moments. Only the crackling of wood in the fireplace disturbed their thoughts.

Travis walked out of the room and down the stairs. A few moments later he returned carrying Curran’s gun.

“Here,” he said, tossing it into Curran’s hands. “You can come.”

Curran’s eyes slowly rose to meet Travis’s. “You trust me with this?”

“You said you wouldn’t try to kill me. At least not for a while. Right?”

Curran nodded. “Right.”

Travis grabbed his own multistrike weapon and threw it over his shoulder. “Good enough for me.”

A tiny smile appeared on Curran’s face. “Maybe you’re not so bad after all, Byrne. For a lawyer.”

K
RAMER HAD BEEN SUSPICIOUS
from the start. After all, less than twenty-four hours ago, Mario had fired him and said he was to have no further association with the family. Now Mario wanted him to come to his home immediately. Was this some kind of setup? In fifteen years of working for Mario, Kramer had never been invited to his home. He hadn’t even known where it was, and he suspected that his lack of knowledge was no accident. What the hell was going on?

To compound his suspicion, Kramer had seen a Jeep parked on the side of the private road leading to Mario’s home, about five hundred feet from the front gates. Odd parking place, and not a car he would expect Mario to be driving. As if that wasn’t enough, he found a green Hyundai parked not far from the Jeep. A quick call from his car phone told him the Hyundai was stolen.

Something unusual was happening at Mario’s house.

As he approached the front door Kramer heard voices. Two voices, maybe three. None of them was Mario’s. They were coming closer, approaching the front door.

Best to play it safe, Kramer decided. He’d fucked up too many times already; he wasn’t taking any more risks. He ducked behind some tall hedges lining the driveway and waited to see who came out the door.

“I’m familiar with that area,” Curran said as he, Travis, and Cavanaugh exited Mario’s house. “I’ll drive.”

“Wait a second,” Travis said. “I said you could come. I didn’t say you could take over.”

“I just thought it made sense, since I know my way around.”

“I’ve lived in Texas all my life.” Travis walked down the front steps and started across the large driveway fronting Mario’s home. “I also know what some of the people on my tail look like. I’ll drive.”

“Suit yourself. I was just—”

Curran’s voice suddenly faded away. Travis turned and saw that Curran had disappeared. One moment he was talking to Travis, and the next—

Cavanaugh pointed behind him. Travis whirled around just in time to see Curran dive over the hedge lining the driveway. What the hell did he think he was doing? Had he gone totally off the deep end?

A few seconds later Travis understood. Curran was rolling on the ground, wrestling with someone. Someone who must’ve been watching them.

Travis ran around the hedge. To his surprise, the man on the ground beneath Curran was not Moroconi. It was an older man, a tall man with a long, prominent scar on the side of his face. Travis had never seen him before.

Curran already had the upper hand. He was by far the stronger of the two, and he had pinned the man’s shoulders down on the well-trimmed lawn.

The man reached inside his jacket for a gun. Curran knocked it away with a quick, decisive slap of his hand. The man’s other hand dipped inside his pants pocket and returned with a cigarette lighter. The man flicked the lighter, then pressed it up against Curran’s face. Curran yelled, startled by the sudden burning sensation, but his hold did not diminish.

Travis ran forward and kicked the lighter out of the man’s hand; it flew off into the hedge. Curran leaned forward and braced his arm just under the man’s chin.

“I could kill you in three seconds,” Curran said in a guttural voice. “And if you try anything like that again, I will.”

The man relaxed. He stopped fighting.

“Who the hell are you?” Curran demanded. “Why were you watching us? And why are you carrying a gun?”

The man looked at Curran, then stared at Travis for a long moment. Then he glanced at Cavanaugh, who had just stepped behind the hedge. He didn’t answer.

Curran brought his fists down on the man’s chest. “I asked you a question! Who are you?”

The man gasped for air. He hesitated, then slowly formed the words. “I’m Inspector Henderson. With the FBI.”

“H
ENDERSON?” TRAVIS SAID. “WHY
the hell are you sneaking around behind the hedges?”

The man shrugged, as best he was able with his shoulders pressed into the mud. “My goal is the same as yours. Finding Moroconi.”

“And trying to recover your precious list, I’ll bet,” Travis said.

The man hesitated. Then: “That’s right.”

“How do we know you are who you say you are?” Cavanaugh asked. “Have you got any identification?”

“No, I’m undercover. I don’t carry ID.”

“So how can you prove you’re Henderson?” Travis asked.

“Do you remember the password, Mr. Byrne? On the business card you received?”

Travis did. He didn’t have the card anymore, but he definitely remembered the password.

“Good. Hickory dickory dock.”

Travis answered. “The mouse ran up the clock.”

“And the cow jumped over the moon.” He grinned, crinkling his vivid scar. ‘Tricky, huh?”

“Yeah, you guys are regular geniuses.”

“So he is who he says he is?” Cavanaugh asked.

“I guess so,” Travis said. “I don’t know how else he could’ve known the password. I called the FBI number in the directory, Henderson, and they said they’d never heard of you.”

“We were trying to confuse you. Disorientation. After all, we were told you were a dangerous killer.”

Curran did not relax his grip. “That still doesn’t explain why you were watching us. In hiding.”

“I didn’t know who you were,” he insisted. “I got a tip that something was going down at Mario Catuara’s place, but I had no idea who the players were, or who came out on top. For all I knew, you could’ve all been mob enforcers. I was playing it safe till I knew who you were. I was about to identify myself when George of the Jungle here leaped on top of me.”

Travis nodded. “Let him go, Curran.”

With obvious reluctance, Curran did as Travis instructed. The man brushed himself off and rose to his feet.

“Look, Henderson,” Travis said, “this whole affair is one gigantic mistake. I don’t have your list and I haven’t killed anyone. One of your own men killed that FBI agent.”

“I know.”

“You—” Travis stared back at him, stunned. “You
know
?”

“Of course.” He recovered his lighter from where it had fallen. “I’ll admit I was confused at first, but I figured it out eventually. One of our men went bad. Probably behind your alleged murder at the West End, too. Why would you want to kill those people? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Travis felt a wave of release rush through his body. “Then why are you after me?”

“After you? I’m here to help you.”

Travis leaned against Cavanaugh for support; this was more good news than he could handle in a single sitting.

“I think we’re both after the same quarry—Moroconi. Am I right?”

Travis agreed. Quickly, he told the man everything they had learned inside Mario’s house, especially about where Moroconi was headed.

“We’re on our way there now,” Travis said. “Why don’t you come with us?”

A slow smile spread across the man’s face. For some strange, inexplicable reason, the smile made Travis shudder.

“I think that’s an excellent idea,” he replied.

“Good,” Cavanaugh said. “Maybe you could call for some FBI backup.”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible. All my men are out on assignment. And by the time I got men reassigned from other departments—”

Travis completed his sentence. “Moroconi would’ve flown the coop.”

The man tilted his head in assent.

“Well, at least you can join us.” Travis glanced at Curran. “Any problems?”

Curran didn’t say anything.

“Cavanaugh?”

“No. I like the idea of having a trained FBI agent along for the ride. As long as he doesn’t shoot Moroconi before we can talk to him.”

“I won’t,” the man replied. “I’d like to ask that gentleman a few questions myself.”

“Good,” Travis said. “Let’s not waste any more time. Moroconi has almost an hour’s lead on us as it is.”

He agreed, still smiling. “Your car or mine?”

Kramer walked back to their cars with them. Not a bad recovery from a near-fatal blunder. He had been so intent on eavesdropping that he hadn’t seen that idiot commando until he was flying over the hedge.

He had to think hard and fast if he was going to make this masquerade fly. At least he had managed to come up with the Henderson bluff, using the name and password he found in Travis’s car. It was a calculated risk. He wasn’t absolutely positive Byrne had never met Henderson, although it seemed unlikely. Henderson was a desk jockey—someone more likely to send flunkeys out to put the fear into a two-bit criminal attorney.

Apparently, Mario had blown it. Crumbled like a cracker. Gave away Jack’s address. If Jack went down, he’d take the rest of the corporation with him. Byrne had to be stopped.

Of course, he’d been planning to take Byrne out anyway. Now he could be more than a paid assassin. He could be a hero. It wouldn’t matter what Mario said about him, or what Mario tried to do to him. Mario would be the traitor, the weasel, the one who talked. Kramer would be the knight in shining armor, the mastermind who saved the family after Mario’s blunder.

As they approached the Jeep Kramer noticed that the kid—Curran, they called him—remained a few steps behind him. Come to think of it, he was watching Kramer very carefully. Apparently the punk had some doubts about this alleged FBI man who dropped in out of the blue. Smart punk.

It was a perfect setup. He would stick to these people like glue, and let them lead him to Moroconi. Once that was done, he would simply wait for the right moment and blow Byrne’s head off. On second thought, a bullet through the kneecap might be better—extremely painful and not immediately fatal. Then he would fire another bullet into an extremity every few minutes or so. Then set fire to his clothes. Slowly. It might take Byrne hours to die. Good. He wanted that shithead lawyer to suffer for what he had put him through. He wanted him to hurt.

He would just wait for the right moment, when this Curran punk was out of the way and not in a position to retaliate. Or he would kill Curran first. Whatever. He would probably have to kill them all, come to think of it, now that they had seen his face. Not that that particularly bothered him.

“We have to find Moroconi before midnight,” Travis said. “Otherwise—” He didn’t finish the sentence, but Kramer knew what he meant. He knew all about Staci’s midnight deadline—since he’d created it himself and leaked it to his pigeon at the paper.

Byrne was holding the gun Curran had knocked out of Kramer’s hand. He was obviously uncertain what to do with it.

“If it makes you more comfortable,” Kramer bluffed, “you keep the gun.”

“No,” Travis said. “You’re going to need it.” He returned the pistol.

Kramer had to exert extreme control, but he managed to suppress his strong desire to laugh.

Thanks for the murder weapon, Byrne. Yours.

I
N A SMALL OFFICE ON
the penthouse floor of a high-rise in downtown Dallas, the real Special Agent Henderson stormed into Agent Simpson’s office. He was behind Simpson’s desk before the man had a chance to blink.

“Mr. Henderson!” Simpson cried, startled.

“Don’t bother getting up,” Henderson growled.

“Oh no,” Simpson said, pushing himself out of his chair. I wouldn’t dream—”

Henderson shoved him back down. “I want to know what’s really going on, Simpson. And you’re going to tell me.”

“I don’t know what you mean—”

“Bureau 99 is going to hell in a handbasket, that’s what I mean. I had a clean, perfectly functioning little team here, and suddenly it’s all gone to shit. I think we have a mole.”

“A mole?” Simpson did his best to feign surprise. “Surely not.”

“Spare me the crap. I’m onto you.”

“Don’t tell me you suspect that
I
—”

“No, I don’t. You haven’t the imagination.” He hovered over Simpson’s chair; Simpson could feel his hot breath on his face. “But I think you know who it is.”

“Why me?”

“You’ve always been a mindless little toady. Anything anyone wanted you to do, no matter how dirty, you were ready to do it.”

Simpson tried to squirm out of his chair, but Henderson didn’t give him an opening. “But, sir—”

“Mind you, I’m not complaining. There’s a place for mindless toadies in every operation, as long as you know who they are and who they’re working for. So that’s my question, Simpson. Who are you working for?”