Special Agent Tom Lange Box Set

by T. J. Brearton

  “She did. And you’ve turned in your phone, and we’ll work on it. But, listen, Lange, the witness protection program is funded for a hundred grand. Supplies are running low and reimbursement is a state legislature thing. The money is just not there. I’m sorry.”

  “What about the security detail? I’ve got a dozen agents here.”

  “I’ve just pulled them out. Except for the position on the top floor, outside of the witness’s room.”

  He meant Culpepper. Tom felt like he was running out of moves. He didn’t want to be insubordinate, but he really worried for Heather and her daughters and it made him grasping, desperate. Without witness protection they were vulnerable. Either to Palumbo or to this new player in the game. “What am I supposed to do with them? Send them home?”

  “I’m doing everything I can. Between our agents and Everglades County, we can keep someone posted for weeks. For as long as it takes . . .”

  Tom was shaking his head. “They’re not going back there.” He recalled the dark SUV rolling slowly past Heather’s house on the sun-drenched street. The tip of the rifle sticking out of the window. The bullets raking the house and car.

  “What about friends in the area? Any family?”

  Tom sighed and sat back on the bed. “She has parents in upstate New York, a brother in Nevada, but she hasn’t even spoken to them about this yet. She seems pretty isolated.”

  “There’s got to be someone.”

  Tom wanted a cigarette. He pulled on his pants as Turnbull spoke. “Listen, you like Culpepper? You know him from Governor Protection, yeah? You two worked together?”

  Tom slipped a t-shirt over his head and put the phone back to his ear. “Sure. Yeah, I like him.”

  “Then Culpepper stays with you. And the room is already paid for another couple days.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Hang in there, Lange. We’ll figure this one out.”

  Tom hung up. Sat staring at his bag in the closet, then pulled it out. He dressed, strapped into his shoulder holster, checked his Glock, slipped it in.

  Then he made another phone call.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  He slipped out of the room and nodded to Culpepper, who leaned against the wall, checking his phone. Tom waved a pack of cigarettes so the agent could see it, then pressed the button for the elevator.

  Outside, the night sky was mostly clear, several bright stars flickering. A few ragged clouds slid across the dark sky, slipping over the moon.

  You’re very persistent, Agent Lange.

  Tom circled the hotel perimeter, keeping watch on all the cars, anticipating movement inside any one of them.

  Halfway around to the front entrance, he passed alongside the swamp. The cypress tree line was about fifty yards away from the parking lot curb.

  He froze, hearing something crackling through the undergrowth.

  I know all about you.

  More crackling sounds and something trampled the brush, then a splash as it encountered water. His heart knocked against the breastplate of his Kevlar vest and he tried to steady his breathing. The swamp fell silent, but for the chorus of insects and small reptiles chirruping in the dark.

  A vehicle approached, a throaty engine gurgling in the damp night. Tom broke out of his trance and resumed moving toward the front of the hotel, jogging now, keeping close to the building. He slowed as he neared the corner, saw a Chevy Camaro turn into the parking lot.

  The Camaro found a spot near the entrance, and Sergeant Danny Coburn got out.

  Tom released a pent-up breath and stepped into the open.

  Coburn was dressed in civvies, jeans, and a t-shirt advertising University of Florida — Go Gators! He saw Tom, made a nod, then ducked back into the car for something before he strode over, his boots making crisp sounds on the asphalt.

  “Evening, Lange.”

  “Thanks for coming.”

  Coburn frowned. “You in trouble, huh? Word is your wit protection has fallen through.”

  “Word travels fast.” Tom hadn’t said anything to Coburn about it on the phone, just asked him to meet.

  Coburn glanced up at the lit windows of the hotel. “She’s got a couple of young ones, you said?”

  “Two little girls.”

  Coburn hooked his thumbs through the pockets of his jeans. Tom glanced at the black holster clipped to his belt, the pistol grip protruding. Tom remembered seeing Coburn’s own family at the beach, a couple of girls among them.

  “So, what’s up?” Coburn asked.

  “I wanted to ask you about something you said, yesterday, about Declan.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “You said that you never had him under direct surveillance.”

  Coburn cut Tom a look, then gazed off toward the dark wall of pine and cypress. “You’re a smart kid. Bit cocky, but that’ll change. I liked you on that Gallo case and I told you there was a place for you with vice narcotics, but it looks like you found your way back to where you wanted to be.”

  “I don’t know if where I am right now is where I want to be. I feel like there’s a lot of moving parts, and I’m not sure what connects and what doesn’t.”

  Coburn nodded. “You’ll have that. Sounds about right. You know, this shit is like a war. And in war, you might make some mistakes. But you’re looking out for your buddies. You gotta draw the line somewhere. And you gotta ask yourself how much good you’re doing. And if the answer is, at the end of the day, you think you’re making the world safer, then . . .” He shrugged. “Then you gotta do what you gotta do to stay in the game.”

  Tom felt something cold stirring in his gut. He recalled Rhodes saying, too, that opinions changed with experience. He pulled out a cigarette, lit up and watched Coburn through the rising smoke. “What are you talking about, Coby?”

  Coburn pulled a tin of chewing tobacco from his pocket, took a pinch between his thumb and forefinger and tucked it behind his lower lip.

  Tom watched as Coburn stuffed the tin in his back pocket. “Hard candies not doing the trick anymore?”

  “Yeah, I can see you’ve quit smoking.”

  Tom held up his hands in innocence. “Hey, I’m commiserating, not judging.”

  “So, look. We’ve had Palumbo on a wiretap for two years. Longest case of my life, I’m working sixteen-hour days. But he’s always changing it up. Different guys coming and going. And we know he’s talking to Vasquez, because we’ve got eyes on Vasquez, too.”

  “You think this thing, all this, could be Vasquez’s people? Getting back at Palumbo?”

  “Timing is off for that. Listen to what I’m saying — we’re watching, we’re working our C.I.s, but these guys are throwing surveillance, and then we find out that Palumbo and Vasquez are meeting. So, we come in with the StingRay, just before Edgar Vasquez dies. We said fuck it; we’ve got to have a look at this whole thing.”

  “But you can’t use that information,” Tom said. “You can’t get a warrant for bulk-data collection. Is that what you’re talking about?”

  “We do what it takes to get the work done, get the bad guys put away. The politicians, the law-makers, they struggle to keep up. Everybody wants to uphold the Constitution. I want to. So no, we don’t use the StingRay information directly.”

  “My understanding,” Tom said, “is that because a StingRay casts a wide net when it mimics a cell tower, it picks up every phone in range. And that’s the violation of third-party privacy, the Fourth Amendment issue. The laws aren’t in lock-step with the tech, but things eventually change, get caught up, right? We have to be patient.”

  Coburn’s eyebrows went up and he spat to the side. “You’re not giving me advice, are you, Lange?”

  “I’m just telling you what I understand.”

  Coburn looked away. “You know, I came here to . . . aww, fuck it.” He started walking back to his Camaro.

  Tom caught up, tossing his cigarette. “Ah, man, hang on . . .”

  The big vice cop turned on
his heel and drove a finger into Tom’s chest. “When you see the shit I’ve seen, the shit half these cops out here have seen, and the fucking bad guys who slip through the cracks, you might change your tune.”

  Tom glanced at the finger. “Easy, Coby.”

  Coburn just glared, then his expression broke up into a big smile, and he laughed. “You’re a fucking piece of work. I heard about you, you know. Blythe said you’re ashamed of your own past; you think you’re white trash or something and you get all revved up trying to prove you’re not. You’re ready to fucking go toe-to-toe with the world, right? A warrior for justice. You hide behind your bullshit, Lange, but you’re the same as anyone else.”

  Tom bristled with adrenaline but kept cool. “Why don’t you just talk to me straight. You agreed to meet me; you know something.”

  The smile evaporated and Coburn gritted his teeth. He outweighed Tom by fifty pounds. Tom’s heart hammered against his ribs. “Fine. You wanna know? CID came in and did their interviews with witnesses after Vasquez was last seen at the restaurant at the dog track. And we talk to CID, and we share what information we can, we try to work together. Everybody knows he was meeting with Palumbo, that Palumbo wanted the action Vasquez had going on. We got pictures of them, we put Vasquez up on surveillance for a while, but he slipped it. Then we used the StingRay. Declan was there.”

  Tom absorbed it. “Okay. Declan was at the track, gambling or something, and the StingRay got his phone data. Is that right? Then, what, that’s how you learned he was working for Palumbo?”

  Coburn stared off a moment, not responding.

  “Did you find evidence that Declan was involved with the sabotage of Vasquez’s vehicle, but couldn’t act on it?”

  Finally, Coburn answered. “No. What we got from his phone was something else.” Coburn spat to the side, said, “This guy had child pornography in his emails.”

  “Okay. Well, we found that, too. So — what did you do?”

  Coburn stared back, silent. Some of the anger faded from his eyes and he leaned back a bit, watching Tom closely.

  Tom had to ask: “Did you act on this information somehow?”

  Coburn turned his head to the side and spat another brown stream. He fished the tobacco out of his mouth and threw it away, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and turned toward the Camaro. “Forget it, Lange.” Coburn opened the car door, sank into the driver’s seat.

  “Coby . . .”

  The big man cranked the engine, the Camaro roared to life. He spoke out the open window. “I didn’t act on it, Lange; someone else got a hold of it.”

  “Got a hold of it? How?” But Tom thought he already knew.

  Coburn dropped the shifter into drive and faced forward. “We were hacked, Lange. This whole thing started with us.”

  Tom grabbed the door, leaned in. “You mean, you’ve got all this private information on people — and someone came in and swiped it?”

  “Get your hand off the car.”

  “When? When did this happen?”

  “About six weeks ago. Now let go.”

  Tom pointed at the hotel behind him. “What about that woman? And her little girls? You’ve got a family, Coby, that’s why you’re here. Whoever took Declan’s information from you, the evidence of what was in his phone, his emails, they used it. I don’t know how, but— Were you able to trace the hack?”

  Coburn slammed his hands on the steering wheel. “You think I haven’t done everything I can? It’s a whole new world out there. We gain a little ground, we get something new that can help us, then the courts are working against us, the public gets outraged — meanwhile these fucking guys out here on the street get to use that technology all day long. And they’re getting better. They’re better at it than we are because we have all the rules, and they have none.”

  “Okay . . .” Tom’s pulse was racing but he tried to calm down, calm Coburn down. “I understand. You tried. But someone got access to all this information. And now they’re using it. They’re using it and there’s a woman and her daughters caught in the middle.”

  Coburn turned back to Tom, and there was genuine concern in his eyes. “What happened to her, or those little girls, has nothing to do with me.” He looked out the windshield again. “I shouldn’t have fuckin’ come . . .”

  “No, you should have. I’m glad you did.”

  “That’s all I can say. Let go of the car, I have to go.”

  “We’ve got to bring this to Blythe, to Turnbull . . .”

  “No.”

  “No?” Tom felt the anger flaring. “You’ve unwittingly given up court-protected surveillance on civilians. Did Palumbo’s people hack you? Or Vasquez’s? I need something on him, Coby, or she’s out on the street with her girls!”

  Coburn slammed the shifter back into park and opened the door so fast Tom stumbled back. Then the big vice cop grabbed Tom by the shirt and threw him against the side of the Camaro. Tom had to suppress every instinct to fight back.

  Coburn breathed heavily, the lingering odor of his tobacco blasting up Tom’s nostrils. He slowly released his grip, and Tom slid down the side of the Camaro, his weight returning to the ground.

  “We don’t know,” Coburn said at last. “They didn’t leave any fucking trace. But I can tell you I don’t think it was Palumbo — we didn’t have anything incriminating Declan in that way. He just looks like some guy who went to the track a lot, gambled, was sick in the head, that’s it.”

  “Then who? Vasquez?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Coby, what about someone inside? One of us? Someone who found out about Declan and wanted to go where the law couldn’t?”

  Coburn was still upset. He’d turned bright red in the face. He coughed a few times like he was having trouble breathing, then shoved Tom aside and opened the door to the Camaro again.

  “Coby — you alright?”

  This time Tom didn’t try to stop him. He couldn’t have, anyway. The vehicle leapt away a second later, tires squawking.

  Tom watched it race out of the parking lot, then turn onto the highway and speed away. The big engine faded into the night and the sounds of insects in the neighboring swamp gradually filled the void.

  Then, ripping through the silence — the unmistakable screech of tires, followed by a metal-shredding crash.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The blood sang in Tom’s ears. He sprinted across the lawn between the parking lot and the highway. It was late and the road was quiet, the streetlights throwing crisscrossing cones of light over the asphalt.

  In the distance, the traffic light turned red. On the other side of the intersection, the Camaro was off the road. There was a second car beside it, the front crumpled, hood smoking.

  Tom’s lungs burned and he panted for breath. Almost there. Someone was trying to get out of the second vehicle, a white compact car. They were shoving their weight against the door, the metal groaning until they got it open and staggered out into the street. A young woman with blood running from her scalp. She blinked and looked around at the accident.

  There was no movement in the Camaro.

  Tom reached the woman and took gentle hold of her. “Are you alright?”

  She seemed disoriented. But she blinked and stared at the Camaro. “They just swerved right into me . . .”

  “Sit down, okay. Over here.”

  Tom walked her to the other side of the road. Some cars were coming through now, drivers ogling the scene, slowing. Tom waved them through and sat the woman down in the grass, well away from the asphalt. “Just stay right here, okay? Ambulance is on the way. What’s your name?”

  “Terri.”

  “Terri. You feel okay? Feel sick to your stomach?”

  She shook her head. “My head hurts. The air bag deployed.” She raised her arm and showed him a red mark. “My hand, too. I think I hit it. I don’t know. They just swerved. Right into me.”

  “Terri, I need your phone. Do you have a phone?”


  She dug it out and handed it over. He dialed 911, gave his shield number, the location, describing the scene in bursts: “Officer involved. Send paramedics. Contact Special Agent Blythe.”

  He handed it back to her.

  “Thanks. Okay. Just sit tight.”

  He ran back toward the Camaro, picking his way through more slowing vehicles.

  He stopped in the middle of the highway when he saw one of them was a black SUV. The chrome on the rear hatch spelled Tahoe.

  “Hey!” Tom pulled his gun. “Hey — fuck — stop! Florida State Police!” He jogged toward the vehicle, aiming the gun down.

  The SUV jerked forward and raced away, lurching to pass other vehicles in its way. Tom ran faster, caught sight of two numbers and a letter: 18-E. It hooked around a bend, squealing the tires, slipped out of sight.

  Tom slowed, stopped, put the Glock in its holster. He returned to the Camaro, found Coburn inside. Coburn looked dead. But not from the accident.

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  He yanked open the door and Danny Coburn flopped halfway out of the car. There was vomit on the steering wheel, and some on his shirt. A thin tendril of blood threaded from his nose. His arms slipped off his chest and his hand landed in the grass.

  There was a round shape in Coburn’s breast pocket. His tin of chewing tobacco.

  * * *

  The female motorist was loaded into the back of an ambulance. There were cops everywhere — local PD out of Orangetree, plus highway patrol and few from County.

  “Agent Lange?”

  A state trooper was asking Tom questions, but he’d already told them everything he knew. He looked off at the hotel rising out of the night, a quarter mile away. He hadn’t seen the Tahoe again, but he wanted to get back to Heather Moss right away.

  “Like I said, tell the ME he needs to look for poison. Potassium cyanide, or something similar. I gotta go.”

  “Aren’t you going to—?”

  Tom glanced at the Camaro one more time. The troopers first on scene had cordoned off the area as per Tom’s request. Coburn still hung halfway out of the vehicle, crime scene tape flapping in the breeze around him. Then Tom ran.