Lazar's Intrigue (The Jack Lazar Series) (26 page)

“Jack,
listen.” The words appeared hard for him to get out. “I’d really appreciate it
if you would come by and visit us tomorrow. I think we should talk some more.” His
eyes glazed over and conveyed a huge swell of emotion. The evening’s events had
apparently opened a door to his soul, and the words seemed to come straight
from his heart. “I’ve already lost one son, Jack. Please don’t let an old fool
like me lose another.”

Jack
gave him a warm, fraternal embrace. The loss of Harry’s companionship at the
time of Sean’s death was an awful experience, and Jack had resigned himself to
the reality that they would never be close again. But this crazy, awful evening
had changed everything.

“I’ll
do that,” Jack said. “Thanks.” He gave Harry a respectful nod as only a son
would give a father before turning around to join the two agents again. The
three of them strolled out of the house through the sea of emergency vehicles
and flashing lights to the waiting unmarked car. Jack took the backseat and
immediately began probing as they drove away.

“This
has been one of the weirdest evenings of my life.” He cleared his throat. “So what’s
the plan now, gentlemen?”

“Well,
first we’d like you to bring us up to date on everything,” Langstrom replied. “If
you don’t mind, we’d like to take you back to our office where we can videotape
your statement. All right?”

“Sure,
but wouldn’t you rather start all this in the morning? It’s already ten o’clock,
and this could take a while.”

“Normally
that would be fine, Mr. Lazar. But, if we’re going to stand any chance of
taking down the rest of Antonucci’s empire, we need to act quickly. Tomorrow
morning could already be too late. Now that Antonucci’s dead, they’re in an
unusually vulnerable position.”

“I
suppose that’s true.”

“And
you can bet someone else will step in to take over the operation in no time.”

“No
doubt,” Jack said, and he suddenly considered that Ben may be the next in line.

“I
just hope you have enough information for us to work from,” Langstrom added.

“Believe
me. I’ve got plenty.”

TWENTY-SIX

“May I get you a cup of coffee?”
Langstrom asked, treating Jack like an honored guest.

“Sure,” he replied thankfully. “Black
would be great.”

Having seen so many movies where
people were horribly mistreated in interrogation rooms, Jack was taken aback by
such courtesy. Of course, he wasn’t under arrest or anything like that. As it
stood, he was just being a good citizen and reporting everything he knew to the
authorities. But, given his involvement in everything, would they conclude
after hearing his testimony that there actually might be reason to detain him,
or worse, arrest him?

The young agent stepped out of
the room to the kitchen across the hall and poured the coffee personally. He
returned moments later with a couple of full, steaming Styrofoam cups.
“Hopefully this will keep us awake for the next couple of hours.”

Jack’s eyes widened in agreement.
“So where do we start?”

Langstrom looked over to his older
partner, apparently inquiring whether the video camera was ready to go.

Burke nodded back in
confirmation.

“Well, I guess the first question
on my mind,” Langstrom began, “is how you got involved with this whole thing in
the first place. How does a perfectly normal citizen get dropped into the
middle of a DEA investigation?”

“Wrong place, wrong time,” Jack
replied with a chuckle. “Remember Sarina Anapolous?”

“Who doesn’t? Major bitch, but a
major babe.”

“Exactly.”

Langstrom smirked and raised his
eyebrows. “So Sarina roped you into this?”

“Yes and no. I didn’t actually
decide to get involved until I found out my old company was mixed up with
Antonucci somehow, and it had something to do with why Gerald Hesterling
blackmailed me into leaving.”

“Really? Why did he blackmail
you?” Langstrom was perplexed.

“It was the result of an
accident, really. A couple of weeks before I resigned from the company I had
inadvertently taken a business file that belonged to him.”

“A business file?” Langstrom
asked.

“Yes. Well, it turns out that it
was the working file for Antonucci’s purchase of Intercontinental Trucking. It
didn’t raise an eyebrow to me at the time since I had no idea who Antonucci was
and couldn’t care less what Hesterling was working on at the time. I had my own
deals to worry about. But I had barely opened the file before Hesterling
charged into my office and demanded it back.”

“So the incident triggered your
curiosity, and you looked into it,” Langstrom said as more of a statement than
a question.

“Actually, no. I just thought
Hesterling was being an asshole, which of course was nothing new, and I didn’t
think another thing about it. The whole incident just left my mind.”

“So that’s why Hesterling
blackmailed you? Because of the file?”

“Yes, but I didn’t know it at the
time. He just said he wanted me out of the company, and considering that he and
I never got along, I didn’t read anything beyond that.”

“What did he use to blackmail you?”

“He threatened to report to Harry
Benson that I had an affair with his daughter, Lisa.”

“The cute blonde girl at the
house sitting with Mr. Benson?”

“That’s her.”

“So…were you?”

Jack hesitated for a moment. “Well,
yes. But it ended some time ago, and it’s really not material to the
situation.”

“Okay, so what eventually tipped
you off that his blackmail scheme had something to do with the Antonucci file?”

“It was something I heard the
first time I met Sarina. The night I saved her life on the beach.”

“What was that?”

“Well, I just happened to
overhear Ben and Bob at the hospital talking about some drug lord named
Antonucci, and the name sounded really familiar to me, but I couldn’t place it
at the time. Then, a few weeks later after I had talked to Sarina about it, the
pieces of the puzzle finally locked into place, and I realized Antonucci was
involved with Hesterling.”

“And that’s when you decided to
get involved.”

“Exactly. I didn’t know what was
going on or to what extent Hesterling was part of the drug operation, but I was
determined to get to the bottom of it. I wasn’t going to let some lowlife
scumbag drug dealer force me out of a job that I worked my whole life to achieve.”

“I don’t blame you. So what did
you do?”

“Well, the first thing I did was
go back to the company to see if I could find that file again. But the guard in
the lobby told Hesterling I was there, and the bastard walked in just as I
started ransacking his office.”

“So they captured you?”

“Yeah, and Sarina, too.”

“Sarina was with you?” Langstrom
looked confused.

“No. They just happened to catch
us both on the same night. She was trying to search his warehouse in Newport
Beach, and they caught her in the process.”

“Talk about coincidences.”

“Yeah, I know. Anyway, we somehow
managed to get out of there alive. And from that point on, up until where we
met up with Ben in Colombia, we spent half our time trying to get a handle on
Antonucci’s drug operation and the other half running from the police.”

Langstrom straightened his
posture as if uncomfortable with Jack’s last statement. “Why in the world were
you running from the police? We’re all on the same side, you know.”

“Yes, but we had reason to
believe there was someone in the DEA feeding them false information, and it was
clear the authorities we came in contact with had orders to kill us, not arrest
us.”

Langstrom wrinkled his brow. “Agent
Anapolous went AWOL, Mr. Lazar. And the story I heard was the agents chasing
you were just trying to apprehend her. Once they determined she wasn’t
cooperating, they had to use whatever force they felt was necessary. The two of
you should have just surrendered when they first contacted you.”

Jack shook his head. “You don’t
understand. They never tried to contact us. We didn’t even know we were being
followed until a car rammed us from behind on the freeway, and the guys inside started
shooting.”

“I don’t understand,” Langstrom
muttered. “Why would they do that? Do you mean to tell me they never approached
you before then?”

“No. Not at all. We had no choice
but to either run or defend ourselves. So we tried a little of both.”

“I guess I would have done the
same thing,” Langstrom agreed, nodding to his partner.

“Then,” Jack continued, “we found
out someone had released a story to the press saying we were drug dealers, not
to mention armed and dangerous. Can you imagine that? All we could figure is the
authorities were working under that assumption, too, and they had orders to
shoot-to-kill. So that must be why they never tried to resolve the situation
peacefully.”

“That makes sense.” He thought
for a moment. “By the way, you’re aware Ben Sanders told us this afternoon that
there was no substance to those accusations, and you are completely innocent? That’s
why we revoked the warrant for your arrest.”

Jack nodded. “He said he would
take care of it.”

“I just don’t know why someone
would make up a story like that, or why we weren’t informed earlier that it was
fabricated. Do you have any idea who started the whole thing?”

Jack remained silent, and it was
obvious to Langstrom that he didn’t want to say.

“C’mon, Mr. Lazar. We need the
whole story.”

“I really don’t know. I never had
much contact with the people in your organization other than Sarina. Surely you
would know better than me.”

“I don’t know who you’re trying
to protect, Mr. Lazar, but there’s really no point in it. We’ll find out the
truth sooner or later, and it would be nice if you could save us a little time.”

Jack sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe
it was that older gentlemen. Bob, wasn’t it?”

“Are you sure?”

“No, I’m not sure. I couldn’t
possibly be sure. The best I can do is speculate. Sorry.”

Langstrom looked toward the
two-way mirror on the back wall and drew his finger across his neck, as if to
say “cut”. And he sighed. “I think that’ll do.”

“What do you mean?” Jack inquired
disconcertedly. “I haven’t told you anything about Antonucci’s operation yet. Aren’t
you going after them?”

“I don’t think so,” Langstrom
replied, and he smiled as he settled back in his chair. He folded his arms
behind the back of his head and looked satisfied.

“Very good,” Ben Sanders said as
he opened the door and walked inside. “I think we’ve got what we need.”

“Ben?” Jack was baffled. “What
are you doing here? I thought you quit.”

He chuckled. “I did. I’m going
off to start a new business.”

Jack looked around at the three
men and slouched in his seat. “Oh, for chrissake. I don’t believe it.”

“We’ve been planning this for a
long time,” Ben explained. “I just never expected things to fall into place so
perfectly. But thanks to you, Antonucci and his entire management team has been
wiped out, and none of us had anything to do with it. These guys can wrap up
the investigation in a neat little package, and I can step right into
Antonucci’s shoes. I couldn’t have planned it better if I tried. I was getting
a little frustrated with you on the plane this morning because I already had
everything all worked out, which I’m sorry to say meant that you were going to
end up taking the fall for everything. But once I saw the potential in
your
plan, I couldn’t help but go along with it.” He smiled. “It’s funny. Even then,
I never imagined things would turn out this good.”

“If
things are so good, Ben, why did you bring me here?”

Jack
suddenly realized he was the only living person who knew what they were up to. Were
they planning to kill him?

“Someone
eventually needed to debrief you,” Ben answered. “And you can imagine I didn’t
want anyone but Langstrom and Burke to do it. We couldn’t afford to take the
risk of another agent digging out the truth. The other reason was to help
determine whether we could trust you.”

“Trust
me? To do what?”

The
three agents looked toward each other. “To keep your mouth shut,” Langstrom
threatened.

“We
don’t need to use that tone with Mr. Lazar,” Ben said, cautioning Langstrom
with his hand. “He’s been around the block a few times now, so I think he knows
what he’s up against.”

“Not
that I’m being ungrateful, Ben,” Jack said. “But why don’t you just kill me?”

“Oh,
I thought of that,” he explained frankly. “And that’s still a possibility
depending on whether you’re willing to cooperate. But the situation is so clean
right now that we hate to mess with it. We can close this case without so much
as raising an eyebrow up the line in the DEA. But if we kill you, that’ll
create another open issue, and someone will start digging around again. So we’d
rather take our chances on you.”

Jack
took a deep breath. “All right. Thank God for that. So tell me. What are we
looking at?”

“Well,
my first choice is to hire you.”

“Hire
me? You’re kidding!”

“Not
at all. You’re smart, quick on your feet, and you have the potential with the
right training to fight like a champion. I’d love to have you on board. After
all, someone needs to replace good ol’ Phil. We’re talking big bucks, too.”

“I
don’t think so.” Jack wasn’t even amused. “But thanks.”

“That’s
all right,” Ben responded, raising his hands to show he wasn’t offended. “I
understand. We all have moral issues to grapple with.”

“And
your second choice?”

“Simple.
Just go your merry way and forget you ever met us.”

“That’s
it?” Jack asked, skeptically.

“That’s
it.”

“Well,
how can you be sure I won’t say anything?”

“Hey,
I was really impressed a few minutes ago when you refused to give my name under
duress. You did a fine job.”