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  “Last night, continuing our ongoing investigation, using information provided by Agent Collins, we managed to stop a shipment of twenty-five kilos of cocaine on its way to New York. Given that Phoenix was compromised, it would not have been just negligent, it would have been plain stupid, to put that operation in their hands. Not only was it my investigation, but we had no idea who in the Phoenix office was working with the Camachos. So I believe that answers your first two questions.”

  She paused to study Turner’s face. It looked amused. She went on.

  “Which leaves the question of why Agent Collins is not in prison. The answer to that is as simple as the other two answers I have given you. It would not just be negligent, it would be stupid to put him there. I spoke to Assistant Director Henderson yesterday on the telephone and outlined the situation for him, so I am not sure why you are not sure, Mike, why this man is not in prison.”

  He drew breath but she went on.

  “This man was tortured to within an inch of his life, and then told that his wife would suffer the same and worse if he did not cooperate. I am guessing that Agent Collins is not the only person in this room with a wife or a husband, or a family, but he is probably the only person in this room who has been tortured. So he is probably the only person in this room qualified to talk about how easy it is to defy a group as powerful as the Sinaloa cartel, and put your family at risk of being tortured, raped and murdered—especially when you don’t know who else in your office has been compromised.

  “I do not condone what he did, and I would like to think that I would have taken a different approach and sought help from headquarters, but more important than that—much more important than that—is that Daryl Collins can offer us a deal that will break the Camacho gang forever and bring down the whole network from Nogales to New York. And however you feel about what he did, the opportunity we have for bringing down this gang, and possibly causing serious damage to Sinaloa across the border, outweighs any personal feelings any of us might have. That, Mike, is why he is not in prison. I would have explained earlier, only I assumed Assistant Director Henderson had already explained it before dispatching you here.”

  He kept his cock-sure smile on his face throughout. When she stopped, he said, “Have you finished, Carmen?”

  “I think I have answered your three questions, Mike.”

  “Thank you.” He turned to Murphy. “Agent Murphy, what can you tell us about Cesar and this Sicario, and the other men who were killed last night?”

  She nodded briefly, like she was agreeing it was her turn to talk. “All the deceased were known to us as minor operators involved with the Beyer Ranch, except the one Detective Dehan refers to as the Sicario. Sicario is a common term used by Mexican gangs to mean assassin, and we are aware of various men using that title, but we have never come across this particular man before. He is unknown to us.” She glanced at O’Leary and added, “I think SAC O’Leary will confirm that.

  “As to Cesar Hernandez, he was very well known to us in San Diego and in L.A. He is now in a secure hospital wing in Los Angeles. My latest information is that he is stable and will be available for interrogation in a few days.

  “We knew he was based here in Nogales and ran the ranch for the Camacho brothers, but…” She turned to O’Leary. “As you know, sir, we had the same problems you guys had in making anything stick against him.” She shifted back to Turner. “We liaised constantly with Tucson, Phoenix and L.A. We knew that L.A. was a major recipient of merchandise coming in through Nogales via Cesar’s ranch. But every operation we set up came to nothing. He always seemed to be two steps ahead of us.” She looked at D.C., who was staring down at his hands in his lap. “I’m guessing that was you, right?”

  “I’m afraid so.” He looked up at Turner. “Logically, any operation San Diego wanted to mount against the Beyer Ranch had to go through Phoenix. I got to hear about it and alerted them.”

  “How could you?” Everybody turned to look. It was SAC Pat O’Leary. His face was twisted with contempt. “How could you put your comrades at risk? Seventeen agents died because of your cowardice!”

  “I am not sure I am the only one, Pat. I am not sure how far the rot has spread. I would have come to you ten years ago, when it first happened. I wanted to. But believe me, they are everywhere, and their power and their influence spreads everywhere.”

  “Excuses!”

  Turner held up his hand. “OK, enough. We’ll find out in good time whether it’s excuses or not.” He looked at Dehan and raised an eyebrow. “I know for damn sure the next person to get caught spilling intelligence to the enemy is not going to get a deal.”

  He kept looking at her and smiling, even though he was talking to O’Leary. I glanced at her, saw she was holding his eye and for some reason I felt a hot needle of anger in my gut. Turner said:

  “SAC O’Leary, two agents under my supervision will have arrived at the Phoenix office by now and will begin a thorough investigation of all your operations over the last ten years in which the Beyer Ranch or the Camacho brothers were involved.” He finally turned away from Dehan and looked at the man he was speaking to. “You will afford them full cooperation, and I gather,” he looked at D.C., “that you will assist us in this investigation.”

  “Once I have spoken to AD Henderson in Washington and the deal is agreed, yes.”

  The disgust was patent on Turner’s face. “Naturally.”

  I sighed noisily and made a face that suggested that everybody was being a little stupid. They all looked at me.

  “It seems to me that perhaps our perspective is getting a bit skewed here. Two things stand out as important to me; the first is that Detective Dehan and I have an ongoing investigation, and Daryl is vital to that investigation, as is Cesar Hernandez. So we are going to need access to both of these witnesses.” I paused and took a deep breath. “The second point which you are all missing, is that everybody in this room is vulnerable to what happened to Daryl Collins. If you have a family, if you have a wife, a husband, a child… anybody you care about, you are vulnerable.” I waved my hand at them. “You can sit there looking holier than thou and damning this man to hell as a traitor. But tomorrow Camacho could be knocking on your door asking you, ‘Plata o plomo?’, with a gun held to your daughter’s head, or your wife or husband’s head.” I shook my own head. “It’s not so easy to be a hero with somebody else’s life.”

  I glanced up at Dehan. “Last night, I watched as the Sicario straddled my wife and tried to push a knife into her throat. I don’t remember much, but I do remember it was intolerable to watch. I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to watch something like that when torture is involved and you are powerless to help. So, I suggest you all get off your high moral horses, lest ye be judged, and start addressing the issue of how you protect good, loyal agents like D.C. from this kind of thing, rather than how you punish them for it.”

  Everybody stared hard at the floor. Turner muttered something about, “Thank you for that… Detective…” and shortly afterwards the meeting broke up.

  Murphy, O’Leary and Turner stepped out into the parking lot together. D.C. stayed sitting. He stared at me a moment, then at Dehan. He said, “Thanks. Now what?”

  It wasn’t an easy question to answer.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Next had been another day of convalescence, during which I did a lot of sleeping and eating—and checking for signs of internal bleeding. I didn’t find any. Dehan had a Skype conference with AD Henderson in Washington and Deputy Inspector John Newman, our chief at the 43rd in New York. Apparently they had thrashed out some kind of plan which I had been too tired and too hungry to take in, but which involved having the Jag sent back to New York and me and Dehan flying to Washington, D.C. There I would receive a proper medical examination and we would all discuss the future of the Redfern case, the Camachos and the Chupacabras. It hadn’t made a lot of sense at the time, but like I say, I had been too hungry and too tired to care much. />
  D.C., it seemed, was already on his way there, with Agent Turner, where he would remain under the protection of a couple of U.S. Marshals.

  I guess Dehan was the Bureau’s blue-eyed girl right then, because they laid on an air taxi to fly us the two thousand miles to D.C. from Phoenix. It was a four hour flight and we were the only passengers, but we didn’t talk much on the way. Probably because I did a lot of sleeping, but it was also true we somehow seemed to have run out of things to say to each other.

  At one point, I opened my eyes and saw her staring out the window, like she wasn’t staring at the clouds but at some image inside her own mind. She noticed me looking, blinked and smiled. I said, “I guess you got everything you wanted, huh?”

  She looked down at the high-polish table between us and slowly ran her hand over it. “I don’t know, did I?”

  I gave my head a small, sideways twist. “You wanted to tie the Redferns to the Camachos, and the Camachos to Arizona and the Mexican cartels. You did that. You wanted to find out what happened to Amy and Charlie. You did that. Plus, you are the Bureau’s darling now. You even get a private jet.”

  She didn’t answer straight away. The only sound in the empty cabin was the muted sigh of the engines. She gave a sudden snort and said, “Who gives a damn about the Bureau? Besides, we’re not done yet! We need to debrief Daryl, we need to interrogate Cesar, then we need to round up and start pulling in the Camachos and their boys. And there’s the DNA to come in yet…”

  I nodded. “You realize they’re going to headhunt you.”

  “Don’t be stupid.” She gave me an oddly hesitant smile. “The way I upset people?”

  “I wouldn’t worry too much about that. You didn’t upset Turner. He likes you.”

  She made a skeptical face. “You feverish, Stone? The guy’s a tool.”

  I dozed off again shortly afterwards, feeling strangely sour, and when I next awoke, we were in Washington. We were met by a driver and taken across the Potomac into D.C., and then by way of 17th Street and Virginia Avenue, through the heart of the city to a cute little red brick with a red door and red wooden shutters, opposite a small park on 32nd Street, NW.

  As the driver let us into the house, he said, “There will be somebody out front twenty-four seven. Any problem, just give a shout. Special Agent Turner will be in touch.”

  We thanked him, he gave us the key and we went inside.

  I dumped my bag and lowered myself carefully onto the sofa. The place was unimaginatively comfortable: open-plan kitchen-living room, a melamine coffee table in front of a flat screen TV. Two vinyl armchairs and a sofa to match. There was a sideboard and there were pictures on the wall of horses galloping.

  Dehan sat in one of the chairs. She looked awkward and uncomfortable. She examined the wall and the TV while clicking her teeth, then examined the ceiling. Finally, she looked at me and said, “You OK? I mean…” She shrugged and pointed at my belly. “Apart from the obvious thing that you got stabbed and cut up. I mean, you know, in yourself, are you OK?”

  I nodded. “Sure. You?”

  “Yeah. I’m great.”

  I sighed. “Look, Dehan...”

  “I know what you’re going to say.”

  “Of course you do, but let me say it anyway.”

  “OK.”

  I frowned at her. She looked oddly like a naughty child who was about to get told off. She didn’t look like Dehan at all and I wondered if my anemia was playing tricks on me. I spread my hands and shook my head. “I think you’ve got this. You managed to pull in the big guns, I don’t really know what I’m doing here.”

  She stared at me for a long time and finally said, “Oh.”

  “That’s not what you were expecting me to say?”

  “No. But, never mind. Sure. I mean, whatever you want. We’re a team. This is a cold case. I thought you’d want to be part of the debriefing and the interrogation.”

  I gave a small laugh and realized I was exhausted. “Yeah… Yes, I would, but this isn’t a cold case anymore. This is a federal investigation. I’m not sure what I can contribute. You’ve got Turner, the Washington Bureau…”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Stone…? What the hell is going on?”

  Before I could answer, her cell rang and she picked it up and answered it.

  “Dehan… Yeah, we just arrived five minutes ago. Sure, tomorrow is great… What? When, tonight?” She made a face as she listened. “OK, sure… seven thirty.” She listened again, frowning. “But nothing too fancy.” She listened, laughed. “You got it.”

  She hung up and stared at the phone a moment.

  I said: “Turner?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Taking you out to dinner?”

  She gave me a quick look. “Us, Stone. To discuss plans for tomorrow and how we proceed. We’re still partners and he knows we’re married. What the hell has got into you?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing. I’m just tired. I’m not up to going out. You go.”

  She hesitated. Smacked the arm of her chair a couple of times with her palm. “Look, Stone, about what happened back at the warehouse…”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry about that.”

  “No, that’s what I want to say. You don’t need to apologize. Hell, you took out five guys and saved my life!”

  I laughed. “I hadn’t thought of it like that. Badass Stone.”

  “I… Maybe I didn’t…”

  “What are you trying to say, Dehan?”

  She took a deep breath, puffed out her cheeks and blew noisily. “Maybe I didn’t express my gratitude properly. You know, questioning you and everything. Maybe I came across…”

  “Don’t worry about it. This case means a lot to you. I understand that. You handled it well and it can really open doors for you.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “What?”

  “Just tell me something. How long have you been in touch with the feds about this case?”

  “What?”

  “I got the impression they weren’t surprised to hear from you, also you seemed to know exactly who to go to. That’s why you were so keen to prove it was a federal case, right?

  She stood. “I’m going to let that pass because you’re not yourself right now.”

  She went to the kitchen and started opening and slamming cupboards. I stood and walked to the breakfast bar. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say, but a wave of weariness tinged with bitterness washed over me and I said, “You know what? I think I’m going to lie down for an hour or two. I’m beat.”

  Her eyes flicked over my face. “You look pale. Come on, I’ll take your bag.”

  I wanted to tell her I could manage by myself, I didn’t need help, but I was too tired. We climbed the stairs, found the first bedroom and I fell on the bed. I felt her taking off my shoes and dropping them on the floor, and then I was unconscious.

  When I awoke, I lay awhile looking at the room. The drapes were closed, but I could see shards of evening light filtering through. The room was small and there was a wardrobe at the foot of the bed, allowing just enough room to squeeze between them. I stared at the ceiling, then at the bedside table with its small lamp. I decided I felt better, and wondered about my conversation with Dehan. Would I have felt the same if I had been stronger? Did I want to be in on the debriefing and the interrogation?

  I wasn’t sure. I sat up and thought of Turner winking at Dehan, his suggestion I should take a desk job. Would they headhunt her? Would she accept? If she did, would she commute from D.C. to New York? Would she see much of Turner?

  I thought of her behavior throughout the case, the shooting of Camacho’s boys by the river, the way she had seemed to operate almost solo. Had I imagined it?

  I stood up and made my way out to the landing to look for a shower. I could hear voices downstairs. Dehan laughed. Then Turner’s voice. I looked at my watch. It was six o’clock. He was early. A whole hour and a half early.

  I went back to the bedroom, pulled on my shoes,
ran my fingers through my hair and made my way down. As I stepped into the living room, I saw Dehan leaning with her back against the breakfast bar and Turner in one of the armchairs, with one long leg crossed over the other. They both stared at me a moment.

  Then Turner said, “He’s up! How you feeling, Stone?”

  I nodded. “Good. I’m fine.”

  Before I could say any more, he gestured at Dehan and said, “Hey, listen, I’m sorry about the misunderstanding. We’d love to have you along, but, you know how it is, Bureau business… Some other night?”

  “Bureau business?”

  The easy smile. “Can’t discuss it.”

  I looked at Dehan. Her cheeks colored and she didn’t meet my eye.

  “No sweat.” I looked back at Turner. “I know you guys have a lot to talk about.”

  Turner laughed. “Have we ever! It’s going to be a looong session, right, Carmen?” Before she could answer, he looked at his watch. “Listen, as the hero is up, we could get started, have a couple of Martinis while they heat up the ovens.”

  Dehan studied my face a moment. “Are you going to be OK?”

  I felt a hot twist of irritation in my gut. “Of course I am.” Then I forced a laugh. “Don’t let me stand in the way of FBI business and Martinis. Or hot ovens for that matter. I have stuff to do anyway.”

  “What stuff?”

  I held her eye a moment, then tried to hide the bitterness as I said, “Not FBI stuff. Enjoy your meeting.”

  Suddenly, Turner was on his feet, saying, “Okaaay, hate to break it up, guys. Shall we get going?” Dehan went to get her coat and Turner patted me on the shoulder and winked. “We’ll catch up soon, hero.”

  He went out and I heard the front door open. A moment later, Dehan came back in. She sighed and looked unhappy. “I’m sorry about this, Stone. You’ve got it all wrong. I’ll see you later, OK?”

  I nodded. “Just try not to be too noisy when you get back.”