Last Chance to Die

by Noah Boyd

“Apparently you don’t understand what a potential nightmare this could be if the media gets hold of it.”

  “That’s exactly why the Russians did it,” Kate offered.

  Langston said, “I’m well aware of that, but who’s going to believe us?”

  Vail sat down in a chair. Kalix, in an attempt to reduce the tension, said, “I think the big question here is why would the Russians kill Pollock and Petriv? That’s never been their style.”

  Kate said, “Maybe this is a small group of loose Russian cannons inside the SVR who are trying too hard to please their superiors—or, more likely, not wind up in gulags. When you have an asset exposed, it makes you look incompetent. You’ve got to hand it to them. They’ve found a way to turn their losing a spy into a black eye for the Bureau.”

  “That’s a reasonable explanation, Kate,” Langston said. “Do you or Steve have any idea how they knew we were onto Petriv?”

  Vail said, “The only thing I can think of is Calculus giving up his list. If he did, the Russians would be watching those individuals. Maybe even asking them that if anything unusual happens to contact the embassy immediately. In Pollock’s case they probably knew we were coming because of the break-in at the safe house and the missing DVD. With Petriv, he knew we were onto the bank because he tried to get more money through the ATM when he had much more in his safe-deposit box. Somehow he knew we had been to the bank and probably assumed we were staking it out. Or maybe someone let the cat out of the bag at NSA after you contacted them the day before. You know how there are no secrets inside the Bureau. You have to assume NSA has the same rumor mill. And since we found the false passports, the Russians had probably told him that they would get him out of the country should anything happen. If so, his next step would be to call his handler.”

  “That also makes sense. All the more reason to bring Dellasanti in as soon as possible,” Langston said. “So let’s get focused on today. Surveillance is already on the drop at the park. There’s no activity yet. We’ve also got two crews on Dellasanti—who, by the way, works for the State Department.”

  “I assume we’re going to arrest him as soon as he makes the pickup,” Kate said.

  “Uh . . .” Langston glanced at Vail.

  She, too, looked over at Vail, who had a small, cynical grin on his face.

  “What the assistant director doesn’t want to tell you,” he said, “is that I will not be making the trip to Maryland.”

  “Since you figured that out, Steve, I assume you understand why,” Langston said.

  “I’m oh for two bringing in spies alive, and because I’m a very temporary employee, someone might interpret those deaths as the reason I was brought into this case.”

  “Is that true?” Kate asked Langston.

  “Obviously it makes enough sense that he figured it out.”

  “You do realize that we’ve gotten this far only because of Steve,” she said.

  “It’s okay, Kate,” Vail told her. “They’re right. The Russians are playing this beautifully.” He turned to Langston. “Maybe it’s time for me to bow out permanently.”

  Langston said, “Absolutely not. The director was vehement about that. No, we just want some space between you and Dellasanti. And I think you understand that ultimately, by using this tack, you’ll be protecting yourself.”

  “Yes, that’s always been my favorite thing about the Bureau, how they look out for me,” Vail said.

  Langston’s cell phone rang. “Assistant Director Langston.” He listened for a moment and then hung up. “Dellasanti has just left his home. It looks like he’s heading to work.”

  “Is the drop on his way?” Kate asked.

  “No. Not in the direction he’s heading. We’ve got time.”

  Vail stood up. After his call to Kate in the middle of the night and her efforts to get him cleared of the Petriv shooting, he felt that maybe he had judged her too quickly after he was excluded from the Petriv case. There was one way to find out where she really stood. “It appears I’ve got the day off. Since Kate hasn’t knifed or shot anyone, I assume she’s going with you.”

  “Yes.”

  Vail stared at her for a second too long, hoping it would remind her of their deal that he was supposed to get a first look at the documents from the impending dead drop. “Don’t forget you promised to call that guy Ariadne,” he said to her.

  Vail sat alongside Luke Bursaw’s desk, scanning the mountain of information printed out from the missing analyst’s work computer. “I’m never using a computer again. There isn’t a keystroke that isn’t permanently recorded.”

  “It would take a year to analyze all this,” Bursaw said.

  “What about her personal laptop?” Vail asked.

  “That—what did you call it?—Shadow Copy stuff? They’re working on it now.”

  “Good. Have you heard anything from your girlfriend Denise?”

  “Nothing. You know the attention span of a hooker. It’s only about as long as their tricks.”

  “All this wheel spinning is making me hungry. How about I let you buy me some lunch.”

  “The way you eat, it’d be cheaper for me to get you a hooker.”

  “Sounds like somebody’s been getting the law-enforcement discount.”

  Bursaw and Vail sat in a booth eating corned beef sandwiches at a deli two blocks from the Washington Field Office. “Does your supervisor know you’re putting all this time in looking for Sundra?”

  “We’re all a little surprised when he actually finds his way to the office every day. The word is he’s got much greater ambitions. All indications are that he’s saving himself so when he gets back to headquarters he can screw up cases Bureau-wide.”

  “So what do you want to do with Sundra next?”

  “Me? You’re the idea guy. Why do you think I’m buying lunch?”

  “You feed me salted meat and expect my A stuff? There better be a promise of pie attached to your next request.”

  “I wish I could get up off of this, but I can’t. It’s waking me in the middle of the night. No matter what I’m doing, I start drifting away thinking about it. I mean, Christ, I didn’t even know her. Not really. I guess it’s become personal because of my cousin.”

  Vail took the last bite of his sandwich and pushed the plate away. “You know she was a good person. If we don’t give them a little extra, who do we do it for?” Vail took a drink. “I’d never say dump it. Nobody else is looking for her, so you have to. It’s part of the idiot agent’s code. Running in the wrong direction is our life. When we’re done here, let’s go back to the office and go through the file again.”

  “That’s your great insight? Go through the file again? I could have done that.”

  “You’re mixing up cause and effect. The insight comes when I find something in the file. If that isn’t good enough, next time ask a psychic to lunch.”

  “Okay, okay. You ready to go?”

  “What’s the magic word?”

  Bursaw signaled the waitress over to their booth. “Pie, please.”

  15

  Sitting in the backseat, Kate listened to Kalix and Langston. Their conversation had a controlled excitement to it. The car was positioned a good half mile from the entrance to the park where it was believed that James Dellasanti was going to pick up the package left by Calculus. He thought it was going to contain only money, while the agents hoped for money and documents. The surveillance crew that had gotten there first thing in the morning had found a package wrapped in black plastic and sealed with tape. It had been found where Vail had predicted it would be, under the end of a small footbridge, a five-minute walk from the parking lot.

  The staccato radio transmissions between the surveillance teams at the drop site and those following Dellasanti’s car cut back and forth through the air rhythmically like a slow, efficient tennis match. Both Langston and Kalix shifted in their seats anxiously. Kate should have been more excited about what was getting ready to happen, but Vail’s not
being there was dulling this once-in-a-career experience for her. She thought about the Russians trying to kill him the night before and how if she had been there he might not have been at as great a risk. After he called her from the Oakton station, she felt sick, not because of what he’d gone through but because she hadn’t taken a stronger stand against Langston’s excluding him. She drew in a sobering breath and tried to not think about Vail.

  She leaned her head back and started drifting off between transmissions. Every third one or so, Langston had Kalix send some unnecessary instruction. She could picture the men at the other end rolling their eyes.

  “We’re approaching the park,” the team leader following Dellasanti said.

  Langston sat up a little straighter and took the mike out of Kalix’s hand. “Make sure you give him enough room. We’ve got people inside the park. We’ll have nothing if you spook him off the pickup.”

  The assistant director waited a few seconds for his transmission to be rogered. The radio remained silent. Kate smiled. She knew that it was a tacit protest. This is what these agents did all day, week in and week out. The disdain that street agents developed for upper management certainly couldn’t be called a mystery. “Did you copy?” Langston asked, his tone becoming more imperious. Again there was no answer, and just as Langston was about to retransmit his demand, two slow, static-punctuated pushes came from the surveillance leader’s mike button, confirming that the instruction had been received.

  Less than a minute later, Kate watched Dellasanti’s car pass by, recognizing it from the surveillance description. Neither Langston nor Kalix seemed to notice. “We’re pulling into the parking lot,” the team leader said.

  “Let’s go, John,” Langston said. Kalix eased the car into gear and drove at a controlled pace through the entrance to the park. The terrain surrounding the parking lot was slightly rolling and heavily treed with hardwoods that now stood stark in the winter sunlight. In the distance ahead, winding footpaths disappeared into long stretches of evergreens. A large sign gave the park hours and listed the different trails, all coded by color.

  There was about a half hour of daylight left, and a few hundred feet away, Kate could see their target exiting his car. She said, “That’s him getting out of the green station wagon just ahead, John.”

  There were a handful of commuter cars scattered throughout the lot, and Kalix pulled into the first space he saw, turning off the engine. They watched as Dellasanti looked back once and then took off at a pace that indicated he knew where he was going, entering the trail marked “Green.” The leader of the unit that had followed him handed off the “eye” to the surveillance people hidden in the park. “Okay, Twenty-seven Three, he’s all yours. We’ll set up outside the entrance in case you need us to get back on him.”

  “We’ll keep you posted, Twelve Two.”

  “Come on,” Langston said, opening the car door. “Did you see the way he was looking around? You could convict him on body language alone.”

  “A suggestion, Bill,” Kate said. “I’d let the surveillance people handle this. Nobody is around. If he sees us, especially the way we’re dressed, he’ll make us in a heartbeat.”

  Langston looked down at his suit and then at Kalix. “You’re probably right. We’ll wait here.”

  The three of them listened in silence as the agents hidden in the woods described every move Dellasanti made. “Subject has crossed the bridge and then stopped. He’s looking around . . . coming around the end of the bridge . . . squatting down . . . reaching under. . . . All units, be advised the subject has the package. He’s put it inside his coat and is starting back across the bridge.”

  Langston held up the mike to his mouth. “All units, this is Assistant Director Langston. We’ll take him when he gets to the parking lot.”

  “Ten-four.”

  Langston opened the door and grabbed a handheld radio. “Let’s go.” Kalix and Kate got out. Langston and Kalix started walking quickly toward the path that Dellasanti had used to enter the park. More agents were pulling into the lot, getting out of their cars, and feeling the excitement of catching a spy red-handed; they hurried to intercept him. Kate leaned back against the car and let her mind drift off, wondering what Vail would do if he were there.

  “The girl isn’t going with them!” The two men sat up straight in the same black SUV a hundred yards outside the parking lot, watching the activity through a small spotting scope.

  “Patience,” the passenger said, and took the scope. “As the Americans say, ‘There are numerous ways to skin a cat.’ ” He flipped a toggle switch on the radio-transmission box sitting on the seat next to him, and a small red light lit up, indicating that it was armed.

  As soon as Dellasanti stepped into the clearing, Langston barked into his portable radio, “Take him!”

  The large man sitting in the passenger seat watched carefully through the scope as the agents started to rush at Dellasanti. Calmly he pressed the button.

  Kate was still leaning on the car when the package under James Dellasanti’s coat exploded, cartwheeling his body through the air. All the agents charging at him dove to the ground as if expecting more detonations.

  Kate ran to Dellasanti with her gun drawn, searching the perimeter for any further attack. She reached him first. He was facedown and motionless. She holstered her weapon and carefully rolled him over. A huge hole had been ripped through his overcoat. The blast had gone in the opposite direction as well. The left side of Dellasanti’s rib cage was gone, and Kate could see into his body cavity. There were bits of currency around the periphery of the wound, plus some kind of cloth that had been in the package. She checked his carotid artery for a pulse and then pushed up his eyelid. He was dead.

  Suddenly realizing the extent of the brutal execution she had just witnessed, Kate collapsed into a sitting position on the ground. Her adrenaline subsided as quickly as it had risen, and her mind fell into a stupor. It took all her strength not to vomit.

  Although Vail was at the off-site reading some of the missing-analyst reports that Bursaw had discreetly copied for him, his mind kept straying to the Calculus case. He tried to shrug the thoughts off, but still something in his subconscious was sending up a small flare of protest. He stepped over to the wall covered with the details of the case and started tracing the intricate web of clues that the Russian had left.

  The phone rang. It was Bursaw. “Denise just called. Our guy came back.”

  “Is he there now?”

  “Have we ever been that lucky?”

  “Your voice sounds like there’s good news in there somewhere.”

  “She got his plate.”

  “I hope you’re calling from your car.”

  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  When Vail got into Bursaw’s Bureau car, he took a moment to read his friend’s face. There were tiny creases of excitement at the corners of his eyes. “I guess you think this is your guy.”

  He pulled away from the curb. “My guy, I don’t know. But the guy who killed these prostitutes, yeah, I think this is him. As far as him being responsible for Sundra, it’s a leap from hookers to middle-class FBI analysts, even if they are all black. But I’ve got nothing else going right now.” He looked over at Vail. “Besides, this is like a time machine, you and me on the street, at night, freezing cold, trying to find some animal that has a million places to hide.”

  “I think you’re remembering only the good parts.”

  Bursaw laughed in disbelief. “Tell me you don’t miss it.”

  “Not enough to reenlist.”

  “So you’d rather be a bricklayer?”

  “You sound like Kate. She thinks I should do something more meaningful, but I have no complaints. I’ve tried to figure out why. The way my old man shoved it down my throat when I was a kid, hating it would make more sense.”

  “ ‘Having no complaints’ is a long way from being passionate about something,” Bursaw said.

  As Bursaw s
lowed the car and started looking for the address from the plate Denise Washington had supplied, Vail said, “There’s our van,” pointing to the vehicle the prostitute had described.

  Bursaw drove a block farther and turned around. “That’s a nasty-looking apartment building it’s parked in front of.”

  “Are we going in?” Vail asked.

  “We’d have to get real lucky to find him in there. The apartments won’t be marked and the bells never work. And no one in there is going to help the po-lice.” Bursaw checked his watch. “It’s after midnight, too late for him to go cruising. And I’m not going to sit on it all night.” He put the car in park, got out, and went to the trunk. Vail watched as he walked toward the van, a pair of pliers in one hand and a wire in the other. He started stripping the ends.

  When he reached the van, Bursaw looked around casually before lifting the engine cover. In less than a minute, the van’s horn started blaring. He lowered the hood and walked back to the car. “Let’s just hope his apartment is close enough to the street for him to hear that.”

  The two men watched the windows at the front of the apartment building as a couple of lights came on. Five minutes later a black man in his early thirties with a shaved head came out and unlocked the van’s door. They could see him pushing angrily on the horn, trying to get it to release.

  Bursaw put the Bureau car in gear. “Get a big mouthful of this warm air, because if this moron runs, he’s all yours, Steve.”

  They pulled up to the van, and Vail rolled down his window. “Can we give you a hand, sir?”

  The man turned and started to say something. But then he saw that the two men were law enforcement. “No, that’s all right, I got it.” He disappeared around the front of his van and raised the hood.

  As quietly as possible, Vail opened the car door. Bursaw said, “Hey, Steve, remember that time in Detroit when you left me outside to cover the back of that house for an hour in below-zero weather? Remember how sick I got?”

  Vail looked back inside the car and saw Bursaw’s hand move to the siren switch with the impending ceremony of a symphony conductor. Vail started to laugh. “Come on, Luke, don’t. I’m begging you.”