No Good Deed (45 page)

Once Nicole transferred to Houston and I transferred to Mexico City, there was a peace in the family that I appreciated. Without Jimmy mucking things up, Margaret ran the organization with military precision. The details of how she brokered deals with cartels throughout Mexico are enclosed in the documents, including individuals she bribed or threatened. With Margaret in LA and Nicole in San Antonio, they controlled two important pipelines from Mexico into the US. And they did it while staying under the radar and using Tobias as the go-between.

I can’t discount the importance of Nicole’s longtime lover, Joseph Contreras, in the success of this operation. He found an ingenious way to launder money and continue to fund the very expensive organization. The expression that you have to spend money to make money is very true—and the reason they were successful was because they had enough money to make them successful. I don’t have details on how the money-laundering operation worked; all I know is that Joseph works for a congresswoman who is on the take. How she’s able to use her position to launder for Nicole, I have no idea, and asking questions can get you killed.

However, I’m writing this letter now because Nicole Rollins was arrested yesterday. The word is they have sufficient evidence to keep her locked up. While I don’t believe she will turn on her family—she has an almost religious obsession with protecting her cousin Tobias from his own stupidity—I fear that with her in prison, Tobias will put everything at risk. The only person who seems to understand this is Margaret, and in our last conversation she told me that she and Nicole already had a plan should Nicole ever be arrested.

Still, a series of events has led me to believe that I am no longer safe from the Hunt family. If the investigation into Nicole shows that I was the one who falsified her records, the Hunts will kill me before they allow me to talk about their operation. That is why I’m putting together this file. Seeking forgiveness, maybe.

No, not forgiveness. I probably wouldn’t have done anything different. It was truly fun while it lasted. More, I want to stick it to the Hunts because while they preach loyalty until they’re blue in the face, they’ll stab you in the back if they think they can get away with it.

Fuck you all.

Adam Dover

Lucy read the letter twice. Her hands were shaking.

“Are you okay?” Hans asked.

“If he’d only named her,” Lucy said.

“Excuse me?”

“Elise Hansen. Elise is in fact Tobias’s half sister. Jimmy Hunt and Tamara Rollins. It’s all here. We can use this with the AUSA to put Elise in maximum security. And it explains so much about Nicole—and Tobias.”

She looked at Hans. “Do we have the files? Do they include Nicole’s plans? Did Dover know where she’s hiding out?”

“Yes, no, and no,” Hans said. “Dover’s boss said the files are documents of drug transactions and shipments, mostly into Los Angeles. There’s very little about Nicole in there.”

“Okay,” she said, shifting gears. “We need to use Elise as bait.”

The room grew quiet around her.

“What do you mean?” Hans said.

“This whole time we knew that Elise was somehow involved with Tobias and, by extension, Nicole. But we didn’t know why or how they were connected. She’s half sister to both of them. If Nicole has been protecting Tobias for years, because he’s family, she’ll do the same for Elise.”

“What do you have in mind?” Abigail said.

“Tobias gave his sixteen-year-old sister a lot of freedom. Power. He had her kill Harper Worthington. He had her screw James Everett and attempt to blackmail him with a sex tape to keep him in line. She set up her own attack—she let herself be shot—to get to the hospital to find out exactly what we know and to set me up because I helped take down her brother’s operation in Operation Heatwave.” It was really because Tobias knew she’d seen him. In her gut, she knew that was the reason. “Through any of this, Tobias could have made Elise disappear—either get her to safety, or kill her. But he didn’t. She’s smart and ruthless and a survivor—but he didn’t kill her because she’s family.”

Lucy turned to Hans and held up Adam Dover’s letter. “Who knows we have this?”

“Only the team that raided his apartment. Everyone in this room. Noah and Rick Stockton have copies, Edward Moody, and the DOJ.”

That was a lot of people, but it hadn’t been released publicly. “What if we have a press conference and release some of this information, but imply that it’s coming from Elise.”

“You’d put a target on her back,” Abigail said.

Lucy refrained from saying that Elise had, in fact, set up Lucy to be shot in the back. Instead she said, “This afternoon, the court placed Elise in a group home in Austin. There’s no doubt in my mind that she’ll walk away at the first available opportunity. But there’s a chance she could still be at court, or at the detention center before she’s transported. We have cause to put her into protective custody, don’t we? Cut her off from everyone, even her lawyer if we say her life is in danger. Have the AUSA read an indictment, we make it up as we go along. Maybe we list charges even if we can’t prove them.”

“There are so many legal problems—”

“Nicole is an escaped fugitive. She killed cops and she will kill Sean. And if she finds out that Sean is scamming her, she’ll kill him now. She has no rights,” Lucy said.

“There is precedent,” Hans said, “if we word the statement right.”

“Wouldn’t Nicole pick up on that?” Brad said. “She understands how the DOJ operates, the lines we can cross and those we can’t.”

“We have to take the risk,” Lucy said. “We have information in this letter that Nicole and Tobias don’t know we have. And some, we can extrapolate based on what we know. We issue a statement and imply that a member of the family is turning state’s evidence—then detail things that Dover revealed, but they’ll think that Elise gave us the information.”

“And then what?” Brad said. “They come in and try to kill her?”

Lucy wasn’t sure. She wanted to put them on edge, force them to make a mistake.

“No, I think that Tobias will try to rescue her. How certain are you, Brad, that there’s still a mole in the DEA?”

“We’re transferring everybody. They don’t have access to any information, and if they did, they’d know we were setting them up. But we’re waiting for the independent review.”

Hans said, “What if we stated that our witness is under sedation and suicide watch? Then release—internally—the location?”

“There is no guarantee anyone will come for her,” Abigail said.

“No, there isn’t,” Lucy said. “There’s no guarantee that Nicole hasn’t already killed Sean. If we can draw Tobias out, we can arrest him on sight. Until we find Nicole’s safe house we can’t just sit around and wait for information!” She forced herself to calm down. Emotion was her enemy. “Also, if we let Elise watch the press conference, I have a feeling she’ll get so angry, she’ll tell me anything I want to know. She’ll be livid that her plan didn’t work exactly like she wanted. I suspect that’s the only way we’ll get her to trip herself up.”

Zach said, “I’ll call the detention center and find out when she’s being transported.”

Abigail said, “I need to clear this with Ritz and Edward.”

Hans said, “I’ll approve the operation and notify DC. Inform Ritz and Edward what we’re doing, but it’s need-to-know. We’ll release the information selectively to the list.”

Abigail nodded and left the room.

“List?” Lucy asked.

Hans glanced around. The only people left in the conference room were her, Brad, Nate, and Hans. And Zach, in the corner on the phone.

Hans said, “I’ve already set a trap for the mole in the briefing papers I distributed this morning. I emailed documents the night before to a list of people who had access to specific information that we have reason to believe has been leaked to the drug cartels. Because the FBI only assists the DEA in these operations, the list was surprisingly small—a dozen people, including civilians. Each document was slightly different. Kate wrote a virus program so if any document is shared electronically, we can trace it. So far, no one has forwarded the email to anyone else. However, to minimize being discovered, Kate said the traitor would most likely print it out and share it. That’s harder to track—unless we can reclaim the physical document. Each one is slightly different.”

“And you want to release what? Different locations to this list?”

“We’ll only have one shot. We’ll need to make each location look like it’s real, which means lots of resources. We’re spread thin now.”

Lucy didn’t want to do it—but she realized that she might have information important to the case that she didn’t realize was important. “May I look at the list?”

“Are you sure? We talked about this yesterday—”

“I’m sure.”

Hans nodded. “Let’s go to Juan’s office.”

Zach jumped up from his workstation in the corner. “Uh, Dr. Vigo?”

“Yes?”

“Elise Hansen was processed out of the detention center by Dr. Barbara Oakley. They left ten minutes ago. They’re currently on their way to Austin.”

“Ten minutes ago?” Brad asked. “That was fast.”

“They?” Lucy asked. “Dr. Oakley is in the transport van?”

“Dr. Oakley is driving, there is no transport,” Zach said.

“Get Oakley on the phone, stat,” Hans said. “I’ll convince her to turn around.”

Zach immediately pulled up her numbers.

“The judge gave the defense everything they wanted,” Lucy said. “I tried my best, but the judge wouldn’t accept what I had to say.”

“Judge Axelrod almost tossed Lucy in jail for contempt,” Nate added.

“Axelrod?” Brad said. “The judge was supposed to be Goodman. I know Goodman well, he would have given Christine Fallow nearly anything she wanted, within reason.”

“We asked for three days to prepare charges because our lead agent had been killed,” Lucy said.

“And she didn’t give it? Un-fucking-believable.”

“Dr. Vigo?” Zach said. “Dr. Oakley’s not answering her cell phone.”

“Trace it.”

“Sir, we need a warrant.”

“Do it,” Hans said. “Her life is in immediate danger.”

This was the one time that Lucy wished she hadn’t been right. She’d warned Oakley, she’d told the court the truth. And now the woman was in danger … and Elise was going to hook up with Tobias. And with Nicole.

No one spoke while Zach went through the tedious process. They had the capability to trace cell phones, but legally they were in a gray area.

Lucy walked around to the map on the wall that outlined every parcel of property in a hundred-fifty-mile radius.

Where are you, Sean?

She turned to look at the computer. Every fifteen minutes, Sean’s watch uploaded his location.

He hadn’t moved in thirty minutes.

“Nate,” she said, motioning him over. “Look.”

Sean had spent the last thirty minutes on the far side of Canyon Lake, an hour north of San Antonio. She called Jack and his phone went directly to voice mail.

“Hans—” she said.

Zach interrupted. “Dr. Oakley’s phone is not moving. It’s at the parking lot of the Alamodome.”

“That’s less than a mile from the courthouse,” Brad said.

Hans told Zach, “Call SAPD, emergency channels. We’re too far away to get there quickly. Ryan, find Proctor and head there now. Proceed with caution. Stay in contact with SAPD and call in regularly. No one is to go off the grid, understood? Zach is coordinating all agents—where they are, who they’re with, what they’re doing. We’re not losing another agent to these assholes.”

When they left, Hans said, “I know you wanted to go, but—”

“No. Look.” She pointed to the computer-generated map with Sean’s GPS. “I called Jack; he didn’t answer.”

“Dunning,” Hans said, “you’re driving. Donnelly, you’re with us.”

“Sir—” Nate began.

“It wasn’t a request.”

*   *   *

Sean’s internal sense of time was well developed, as was his acute sense of direction. Even with the bag over his head, based on the road surface, speed, and traffic sounds he sensed they were heading out of the city. They didn’t stop for nearly an hour, then they parked in a remote area. For a minute he thought they would kill him and dump his body, but when they ordered him to strip and put on what looked like hospital scrubs, he realized they were being extra cautious. Smart. Too smart. He had to dump his watch as well, which meant Jack couldn’t track him.

Jack was likely ten minutes behind them, but because of the delay in the GPS—for security in case they swept him for any transmitting device—it would be at least fifteen minutes before Jack knew he wasn’t moving. By the time he got here, he’d only find the watch. Sean suspected they were nowhere near Rollins’s safe house.

The watch had recorded everything since he’d been taken, but he couldn’t upload the data to the server with his hands zip-tied. The kidnappers had talked almost the entire way, some of which Sean caught—such as, they were meeting Contreras by a lake—and some that was muffled because of the bag over his head. FBI technology could separate the voices from the ambient sound and hopefully there were more clues in the data.

Sean was angry—though this was his idea and he knew it was the best chance of catching Rollins and Tobias, he was furious that he’d been grabbed. If he hadn’t planned to be submissive, he would have fought back. Four against one … not great odds. But he would have fought. He hated being passive.

He was standing in the heat, though anything was better than the black bag over his head. He wasn’t claustrophobic, but the discomfort was real, the unknown keeping his heart rate elevated and his adrenaline pumping.

There were four kidnappers, and two walked away under the shade and drank water. He wanted water, but didn’t ask. They retied his hands. Sean could break the zip-ties, but that would defeat the purpose of being taken to Rollins.

He glared at the kidnappers. They were guns for hire, not too bright, but they obviously did what they were told. Forced him to change then restrained him again. Obviously Rollins came up with the plan. Anyone who could run an international drug operation while working as an agent for the DEA was no idiot.