Wake the Devil (19 page)

W
hen the plane landed at a private airport twenty minutes outside Manhattan, Dwayne Stafford finally let out his breath. The pilot gave Rachel his cellphone number and told her he and the copilot would grab a bite to eat and stay close until they heard from her. It occurred to Beth that being a pilot had to be one of the best jobs in the world. Once you landed, that was it. No problems to take home with you. Nothing to worry about, just show up for the next flight. Awfully cool.

It had been a while since she’d been in New York and a variety of memories and emotions were competing for her attention. Some were happy; some were awkward. She wished Jack was there with her. It would be nice to show a country boy the city. They took the first taxi in line and left for the airport.

“Man, those are some huge smoke stacks,” Dwayne Stafford said.

Beth came back to the moment. “That’s Big Allis, one of the city’s major power plants. A friend’s father told me in 1965 there was a huge blackout in most of New England and part of Canada and Allis crashed. No streetlights, no electricity, nothing.”

“You’re kidding?” Dwayne said. “All of New England?”

Beth shrugged. “A lot of it. They fixed Allis the next day and things went back to normal . . . almost.”

“Almost?”

“Nine months later the birth rate in New York took a sudden leap up.”

Dwayne laughed. “Now you’re pullin’ my leg.”

“Ask the doctor.”

“It’s true,” Rachel said. “My mom was an obstetrician in Queens. She told me all about it.”

“Hey, is that the United Nations?” Dwayne asked.

“Yep,” the cabbie answered. “And that big building in the middle is the Empire State. You guys should check out the observation deck.”

An awkward silence followed. On the flight up, Rachel had shared the story of how George proposed to her.

“I’ve been there,” Rachel said quietly, then turned and stared down at the swirling gray waters of the East River.

*

Upon reaching NYU Langone Medical Center, they found their optimism about staying below the Sandman’s radar was unjustified. Shortly after Rachel left to get changed and review the latest tests on her patient, Beth was approached by a slender black man in a suit. Her first thought was that he was there to serve them papers placing Rachel into a witness protection program. He showed her his credentials. His name was Raymond Price and he was with New York’s FBI office. Beth placed his age around forty and his height about the same as Jack’s.

“Detective Sturgis, I’m glad I caught up with you. Where’s your partner?”

“Standing outside the doctors’ changing room. What’s up?”

“We have a problem. Shortly after you landed, Homeland Security got a hit on an individual matching Thomas Courtney’s description at LaGuardia Airport.”

“That’s impossible.”

“’Fraid it’s not. The confidence factor’s fairly high on the facial recognition scale. Sixty-five percent. Unfortunately, he was gone by the time the cops got in gear. It would have been higher but he never once looked up, meaning he pretty much knew where the cameras were. We were lucky to catch a head-on view of him from out of the remotes.” Price took two digital photographs out of his briefcase and handed them to her. “One’s for you and one’s for your partner. I’m surprised your office hasn’t alerted you.”

“So am I,” Beth said, pulling out her cellphone. “Goddammit,” she muttered under her breath. She had shut it off at the airport and forgotten to turn it back on. There were two messages from Todd Milner saying, “Call me! Sandman in New York.”

He inquired, “Is Doctor Lawrence in surgery?”

“Already, or about to go in.”

“Can we stop her?”

“Not a chance,” Beth said. “She has a sick kid on her hands. The U.S. Attorney tried and she told him to piss off. You’d have to haul her out of there in handcuffs.”

“Well, that ain’t gonna happen,” Price said. “Which brings me to our second problem. A Mr. Carmine Donofrio called both his counterpart here in New York and our SAC to say he’ll have paper on her early this afternoon. They want us to take her into custody.”

“Damn,” Beth said.

“However, Special Agent Todd Milner called me personally and asked if I would take my time serving her. He assured me he’s speaking for the deputy director as well.”

“Great,” Beth said. “How much time can you give us?”

“Don’t know. Obviously, I can’t break into the operating room. That might endanger the child. So I’m wondering, in the spirit of interdepartmental cooperation, if you’d mind giving me a call when Dr. Lawrence is free?”

“That I can do,” Beth said. “Do you know Todd?”

“I know
of
him. Never met the man. He worked out of the Phoenix office and just transferred to DC.”

“What about Jack Kale?”

“Now Jack I do know. I was with him on a couple of cases.”

“Really? You worked together?”

“Several times. I was surprised when he left the Bureau. Just before he got started on that Scarecrow case, we were assigned to a big kidnapping case in California involving four little girls. To this day, I have no idea how he figured out where those girls were buried. The bastard who snatched them had the kids in boxes with oxygen tanks to keep them alive.”

“That’s Jack,” Beth said. “I’ve been trying to learn how he does it. Not sure I’m making much progress.”

Price laughed to himself. “You’re not the only one. I wouldn’t let that laid-back attitude of his fool you. Push comes to shove, that boy can be tougher than a prison steak. Believe me. I’ve seen it firsthand.”

“Sounds like you know him pretty well,” Beth said.

“Better than most. We met in Afghanistan in the Marines, way back before we joined the Bureau. We were both assigned to CID as investigators, except neither of us knew our butts from a hole in the ground. Dr. Jack won himself a Silver Star over there.”

“I read about that in his file,” Beth said. “But there were no details and he never talks about it.”

The agent nodded as if that was something he expected.

“Do you know what happened?” Beth asked.

“I do.”

“Okay, give.”

“Like I said, CID, right? For the first three months, everything we handled was strictly routine. Then one day out of the blue we receive information that a corporal in supply, a nineteen-year-old kid from Detroit, is selling ordinance to the Kurdish rebels. Can you imagine? One of our own guys. It was nuts.

“Anyway, the CO sends us to arrest him. So we grab two MPs and head out. According to the snitch, the transaction was going down in an alley on the outskirts of Kabul. It was good intel.

“The second they see us they all take off like a bunch of rats, except for the kid, who they shoot in the stomach thinking he set them up. Suddenly the alley lights up like the Fourth of July and all hell breaks loose. Five of their pals were waiting at the opposite end as lookouts. A grenade went off. Bullets started bouncing off the walls. People are screaming. It was a complete nut house.

“Jack took one in the leg, but managed to pull the kid into a storage room.”

“Wow,” Beth said.

“Yeah, wow. Unfortunately, the storage room was occupied by three of the rebels.”

Beth’s mouth opened. She’d seen the scar on Jack’s leg but all he ever said was that he caught a stray bullet.

Price continued. “Jack and the prisoner were the only ones who came out of there alive.”

It was Beth’s turn to shake her head. At times, her fiancé reminded her of an iceberg. Only a small part of him was visible above the waterline.

She inquired, “Have you stayed in contact all these years?”

“Not as much as when we worked together, but we try to keep in touch. Just got a birthday e-mail from him the other day. Frankly, I’m glad he’s back with us.”

Beth’s feelings on the subject were mixed, but she decided to say “Me too” and leave it at that.

Price said, “Sounds like you got a tough situation on your hands.”

“More than tough.”

Price nodded. “I only had a quick briefing from the ASAC. He informed him the deputy director is hands-on with this.”

“I’ve met her. She told me we need him. Guess I wouldn’t argue the point.”

Agent Price seemed to find that humorous, prompting Beth to raise her eyebrows in question.

“Don’t quote me on this, but back in the day, I always thought him and the DD had a little thing going, ’cept she wasn’t DD then. She was our lead agent.”

“Janet Newton?”

“The same.”

The lobby temperature suddenly dropped by several degrees. Price took one look at Beth’s face and asked, “I say something wrong, Ms. Sturgis?”

Beth held up her hand. “See this ring?”

“Lovely.”

“Thank you. Jack Kale gave it to me this morning just after he asked me to marry him.”

Ray Price stared at her and took a deep breath. “People sometimes ask me if black folks can blush. Now being an articulate and sophisticated individual, I’ve never found the need. Tell you what I’m gonna do, though. I’m gonna wander around and see if I can find me a doctor and have my foot surgically removed from my mouth.”

Beth laughed. “If that’s an apology, you’re forgiven.”

“It is. A very abject one. Congratulations to you both. What say I hang around and check the people going in and out?” The agent scanned the lobby. “This place is busier than Times Square.”

“Appreciate it,” Beth said. “Maybe you can speak with hospital security and see if there are any other ways into the operating room. I doubt it, but I’d like to cover all the bases.”

Price handed her his business card. “That’s my cell number on the bottom. Let’s stay in touch every fifteen minutes or so.”

“Sounds good,” Beth said.

“Mind if I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“Milner told me the DD and U.S. Attorney want this dude alive.”

“That’s right.”

“I get that he’s the baddest motherfucker on the planet, but we’re talking about a cop killer, right?”

Beth nodded. “One of the detectives he killed the other day was a friend of mine.”

“So what’s the deal here?”

“The U.S. Attorney’s office is hoping to turn him. The real target is a Russian arms dealer named Sergei Borov, who they think hired him. My orders are to shoot first and ask questions later. If I can take him I will, but I’m not gonna push it.”

Price held her eye for a long time. She didn’t flinch or look away. He had no doubt this woman would make the right choice when the time came.

“Funny thing,” he said. “Agent Todd Milner gave me the same advice. See you later, Detective.”

T
he operation lasted nearly five hours. Rachel emerged from it looking like she had just run the New York City Marathon. Nevertheless, she had a smile on her face.

“Success?” Beth asked.

“Awesome,” Rachel said. “I’m really pleased with the result. I need fifteen minutes to speak with the parents.”

“And then?”

“I’ll shower up, change clothes, and we can head to the airport.”

“You interested in a bite to eat, Doc?” Dwayne Stafford asked.

Rachel’s eyes widened. “I’m so sorry. You’ve been waiting out here all this time. When I’m in surgery, I forget about everything but what I’m doing. Of course we’ll eat first. I won’t be long.”

When she left, Beth and Dwayne resumed their discussion about whether to tell her the Sandman was in New York.

“What bothers me,” Dwayne said, “is how he knew we’d be here. This trip wasn’t exactly planned. Do you think someone in the doc’s office is talking?”

“I don’t know, but it makes sense. Maybe we should start running backgrounds on them.”

They were speculating about who the leak might be when Beth came up with the answer. “The fire marshal.”

“You lost me.”

“The Sandman was posing as him, right?”

“It could have been his partner.”

“Sure, but you said you had the man in sight the whole time he was there?”

“All the time he was in the office. The only time I didn’t see him was when he went next door to the space they’re expanding into. I figured it didn’t matter because it’s empty and my job was to protect the witnesses.”

“No question,” Beth said. “Dr. Patterson told us the marshal was checking to see if their wiring was up to code.”

“Sure did.”

“Isn’t that something building inspectors do?”

Dwayne shrugged. “Maybe there’s some overlap.”

“Maybe,” Beth agreed. “Only I don’t think Courtney’s talking to anyone—he’s listening.”

“You mean a wiretap?”

“I didn’t see anything when I went in there, but I wasn’t looking for that. They make pickup devices so small these days I might have missed it. Got to be the answer.”

“Damn, I should have thought of that. Good thinkin’. I’d sure love to see ol’ Jack’s face when you tell him.”

They were still undecided about how to handle the situation when Rachel returned from talking with her patient’s mother and father. She told them to give her another twenty minutes to get ready. To be safe, Beth checked the locker room again before letting her go in. Apparently, the operation had a side benefit. Despite all she had been through, Rachel was carrying herself more erect and seemed less depressed. That would probably last until her thoughts turned to the funeral arrangements back in Atlanta. She had informed them that due to the number of people attending, the service would be held outdoors, which would make security a major problem.

*

Rachel was speaking on her cellphone when she came out of the locker room. “All right, I’ll tell them.”

“Something wrong?” Dwayne asked.

“That was our pilot. The mechanic checked the aircraft and told him one of the pressure seals on the doors needs to be replaced. It’s a minor thing, but the part won’t be here until tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, boy,” Beth said.

“We can go commercial,” Rachel suggested.

Both detectives were against it. The Sandman’s presence in New York had changed everything. The obvious priority was to protect Rachel and the FBI had far more resources and people. It was time to give in.

Rachel listened quietly and didn’t comment. Beth’s heart went out to her. This woman had suffered enough pain and aggravation to last a lifetime. At one point, she asked what Beth thought she should do. Beth told her.

“All right, call your agent. I’ll check with the airlines just to be sure.”

Ray Price already knew the operation was over. Beth was partway through dialing his number when she noticed him sitting across the lobby reading
Esquire.
She motioned him over, expecting to hear the decision had already been made, but he told her there was still no word from Carmine Donofrio.

“Must be having trouble finding a judge,” Dwayne said. “Or I might be having trouble with my cellphone.” He tapped the screen a few times and added, “Reception’s a bitch in these hospitals.”

Beth smiled. “So we’re free to leave?”

“Until I hear otherwise. I take it you were calling me a minute ago?”

“We had a deal, right? Between you and me, we told her the Bureau can do a better job protecting her.”

Price lifted his shoulders. “Frankly, I think it’s the right decision. But if she says no, there’s not much I can do.”

Beth explained about the mechanical problem.

Price said, “As I see it, we can handle this a couple of ways. I can hang out with you guys and provide additional security. If the order comes through, I’ll take it from there. Or I can meet you at the plane in the morning.”

“We’d be happy for your company, Agent Price,” Beth said. “Considering what we’re dealing with, an extra pair of eyes would be welcome. This man scares the hell out of me.”

“I’ll let my office know.”

Before he could call, Dwayne explained, “Ms. Sturgis figured out how the Sandman knew we’d be in New York. When he was
up at Doc Lawrence’s office posing as a fire marshal, he must have installed a listening device. Being a doctor, she needs to keep her staff informed of her whereabouts.”

Price said, “I received a coded e-mail from a Detective Dan Pappas. Jack asked him to let me know he had your techs in Atlanta run a full electronic sweep of Dr. Lawrence’s office and they found the bug earlier this morning.”

Beth’s mouth opened. “But I didn’t even . . . never mind.”

“Pappas said Kale’s leaving it in place for some plan he is hatching. He didn’t go into detail.”

“He is so annoying,” Beth said.

Price blinked. “This the same fella you plannin’ to marry?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

Price smiled.

Rachel returned to tell them, “I have good news and bad news.”

“What’s the bad?” Dwayne said.

“Even if we wanted to go commercial, we can’t. All the flights to Atlanta are cancelled because of the weather. Apparently, there are storms up and down the east coast, so it looks like we’re stuck here until tomorrow.”

“What’s the good news?”

“The family of the girl I operated on reserved rooms for us at the Plaza.”

When she lived in New York, Beth had been to the Plaza several times and loved the place. It was sedate and elegant in an understated way. Staying there would be nice, but it presented a problem as far as protecting Rachel was concerned. There was no way they could leave her room unguarded, which meant she and Dwayne would be up all night in shifts. One glance at her partner was enough to tell her he had reached the same conclusion.

She let out a resigned breath, introduced Ray Price, and explained the situation.

Rachel said, “So you could take me into custody any minute?”

“I’m afraid so, ma’am. And to be honest, I don’t think that’s such a bad thing.”

“But I don’t have to go with you?”

“No, you don’t. Look, nobody here wants to impose on you, Doctor. We know what you’ve been though. All of us are just trying to do our jobs and keep you out of harm’s way.”

Rachel shook her head. “He bugged my office?”

“Looks that way,” Beth said. “I was just informed our techs found the listening device earlier today. Jack Kale wants to leave it in place for the time being.”

“He’s really quite smart to have figured that out.”

Beth rolled her eyes at Dwayne. He shrugged.

“So no more communications with them until you clear it with us first, okay?” Beth said.

“I feel like I have a target on my back,” Rachel said.

“And we’re going to make sure nobody hits it. Agent Price has agreed to stay with us until word comes down about switching custody. Still interested in getting a bite to eat?”

“Absolutely. I’m starving.”