by Dianna Love
Cooper and Celina hung back. “She’s a machine,” he murmured under his breath, picking up Celina’s bag. “Doesn’t care about anyone.”
“She’s a pixie in a power suit.”
They stood there together for a moment staring at Lana. Just as the woman reached the door to the conference room, Forester pulling it open for her, she turned and glanced back at them. It was a subtle, over the shoulder look, her left eyebrow rising ever so slightly at the sight of them standing together, Celina’s bag in Cooper’s hands. Celina saw the mocking shadow pass over her face again and a second later Lana was on her way back.
Cooper stiffened beside her.
“From here on out, the DEA has ceded authority on this case to the FBI.” Lana smiled at Cooper. “Your presence here is not necessary…” She paused for effect. “Nor wanted.”
Cooper opened his mouth to respond, but stopped and forcefully closed it.
Celina admired his control. She, however, was more than up for Lana’s challenge. Engaging her expressionless perfunctory smile, Celina stepped toward her. “I had an instructor at Quantico who always said, ‘an effective leader uses all the tools in his toolbox, and uses them wisely’, meaning don’t use a hammer when you need a screwdriver.”
Lana took the challenge. “Your point?”
Engage warmer smile. Manipulate the manipulator. “Like you, Agent Harris has years of experience with Emilio Londano and his organization. Like you, he’s looking for a successful outcome here. You may be the hammer that drives this mission forward, but when it comes time to put the screws to Emilio, you’ll need the screwdriver to get the job done.”
After a second, Lana mirrored her smile with absolutely no warmth. “How metaphorical of you, Agent Davenport, but from my experience Agent Harris has never been a team player. He’s undisciplined, unprincipled, and” —she did that pause thing again as she glanced at Cooper—“unmanageable.”
How un-tidy, Celina thought, keeping her smile in place. Cooper was none of those things. The complete polar opposite of those things in fact. Kind of like Lana seeming to be the exact opposite of how Cooper described her. What was with these two? “Director Dupé has already given Agents Harris and the SCVC taskforce clearance to help with this mission.” Celina dropped her smile and did her best innocent look. “I’m surprised he didn’t mention that to you.”
Lana’s lips tightened. Bingo. Lana knew…she just didn’t know Celina knew.
Lana tapped her foot on the floor, passing her gaze between Celina and Cooper. Down the hall, Forester was still holding the door, gaze locked on Lana. Dupé stuck out his head. “Chief Custov?”
“Coming,” she said, giving him a true smile.
Wants to snag the boss, Celina added to her list, and then something clicked in her brain that made her look at Cooper. He was a statue, looking down the hall but seeing nothing. Saying nothing. Had Lana been one of the gals?
Lana turned back. “Let me give you a piece of advice, rookie.” She was completely cool, completely ignoring Cooper, completely emphasizing the annoying term. “You weren’t the first and you won’t be the last in Agent Harris’s bed, but if you’re ever going to be a part of my team, you better chose your fuck buddies with more discretion.”
O-kay. Celina closed the distance between them, put her nose to Lana’s. “How dare you tell me what—” Cooper’s hand touched her arm and she stopped in mid-sentence, remembering his instructions. Taking a deep breath, she stepped back. Forced her gaze to mimic Cooper’s.
Lana smiled. She marched to the door, heels clacking confidently as Forester ushered her into the conference room.
Studying Cooper’s face, Celina forced herself to keep breathing. “So you and Lana…” she let her voice trail off.
“Hate each other, yes,” Cooper said. “Thank God she’s one of you now and I rarely have to deal with her.” He gave Celina a wink and ushered her forward. “Your metaphor was off. I’m a power tool. Y’know, like a Dewalt drill driver, 12volt, XR pack kind of guy.”
Cooper never joked. He was trying to take her mind off of Lana, distract her so she’d calm down.
“You lied,” she said under her breath to him as they approached the conference room. “That woman has never bench-pressed a weight in her life.”
“It took her less than thirty seconds to make you lose your cool,” he said, matching her voice. “Never underestimate what she can do.”
Chapter Seventeen
Throughout her teenage years, Celina had a reoccurring nightmare. She stood in front of a group of people wearing nothing but a rosary. Cooper’s estimate of how many people were waiting for her in the sleek, modern, high-tech conference room of L.A.’s FBI headquarters was conservative. At least twenty-four pairs of eyes focused on her as she entered the room and Celina froze in mid-stride. She double-checked to make sure she was still wearing clothes.
Most of the SCVC taskforce was present and an FBI profiler. There was also a female fugitive apprehension agent who looked like she could pass for Celina’s sister.
“Sara Rios,” the woman said, shaking Celina’s hand. “How are you doing, Agent Davenport?”
“I’ve had better days.” I’d rather face Emilio than speak in front of all these people.
Celina shook hands with the rest of them and took a seat reserved for her next to Dupé. Lana sat directly across from her, her face a blank. Cooper was also on the other side of the table, but farther down next to Thomas.
Dupé updated the group on the current situation, including the manhunt. Celina noted Emilio’s picture had been added to the FBI’s Top 10, hanging poster-size, on the walls. One drug cartel leader in among terrorists and serial killers. In Celina’s mind, Emilio fit perfectly with the others.
Dupé directed his next comment to her. “After you left the safe house in Des Moines, the agent in charge had a visitor.” Pushing a button on the remote in front of him, a black and white image of the safe house’s living room appeared on a monitor in front of each person. Mary had her back to the camera. She was talking on a cell phone and looking out the front window next to the fireplace.
Her voice was too soft for the audio to capture, but Celina strained to catch what she was saying. A man emerged behind her, his back also to the camera. Not tall—about the same height as Mary—but well-muscled. While a ball cap covered much of his head, Celina could see his hair was dark and cut close to his skull. He hesitated for a moment, head cocked to listen to the agent. Mary closed the phone and he moved toward her with grace like a cat, and something clicked in Celina’s brain.
Cooper sat expressionless, but the rigidity of his back confirmed what Celina’s mind was saying.
Emilio was that close.
The next few minutes of video unfolded in silence except for the voices of the agent and Emilio. At the end, he left her on the floor and blew a kiss at the camera as he passed. The ball cap was pulled low enough to shadow his features and his hand helped conceal even more, but something about the gesture rang false to Celina. Before she could put her finger on it, Dupé stopped the recording and everyone’s eyes swung to her.
“What I want to know,” Lana said, picking up a pen and rolling it between her fingers, “is why Londano killed a male agent, but only injured the female ones. Why stab the first one in the shoulder and not in the kidney? Why interrogate this agent and then leave her with only a head concussion like he did McBroom?”
Celina shrugged. “Emilio has never murdered a woman that I know of.”
“Why not?”
Cooper spoke. “His MO does not include direct involvement in murdering anyone, male or female. In the past, he’s always directed Valquis or one of his other lieutenants to do his dirty work. Killing Sugars—”
“My question still stands,” Lana interrupted. Her eyes continued boring into Celina. “Why didn’t he kill the female agents?”
“They have names,” Celina said. “Ronni, Dawn, and Mary.”
Lana stopped rol
ling her pen and Celina felt mental ice daggers shooting across the table at her.
The profiler sat forward in his seat. A middle-aged guy with thick-rimmed glasses and a facial tic that made him smile at the end of every sentence, every pause. “Emilio and Enrique were raised by their mother.” Smile.
“That’s right,” Celina jumped in, glancing around the table and settling her gaze on Dupé. “In Mexico City. Their father, Ernesto, and their uncles who ran the original drug cartel supported a local politician, Muendez, who was active in their organization. He helped them stay out of prison and they funded his rise up the political ladder. But a deal between Emilio’s uncles and Muendez went bad and all the parties chose to blame Ernesto. Muendez sent some of his men to the house to find Ernesto and exact some revenge, but he wasn’t there. Emilio’s mother was beaten in front of the two boys but she refused to tell Muendez’s men where Ernesto was hiding; maybe she honestly didn’t know and eventually they killed her. Ernesto never returned to the family and Emilio and Enrique went to live with their uncle Jose Prisco. That’s where they learned the business.”
Lana tapped her pen three times in succession. “Was there an answer to my question in that story, Agent Davenport?”
Celina glanced at the profiler. He nodded, and answered. “Emilio is opposed to killing women because of what happened to his mother.” Smile.
“But that fact will hardly help us capture him,” Celina said, her eyes now locked on Lana’s. “So really it’s a moot point.”
Lana’s pen stopped in mid-swing.
“May I?” Celina asked Dupé, pointing at the remote. He handed it to her. “The real question is why is Emilio doing this? What’s his motivation?” She rewound the last thirty seconds of the video feed and let it play again. Emilio dropped the agent and blew a kiss at the camera.
Thomas cleared his throat behind her. “You said it was revenge. He wants to make the FBI look incompetent.”
Celina rewound the feed again, and the scene unfolded once more. “Too simple,” she said, still distracted by the tight feeling in her stomach. “I had a lot of time on the plane ride back here to think about it and I believe revenge is too simplistic of a motive for Emilio. He’s never been driven by emotion. Enrique, yes, but not Emilio. Emilio’s cerebral. Goal-oriented. He’s a business man, motivated by deal-making and long term strategy to further his bottom line. Revenge seems…” Her voice trailed off for a moment as Emilio blew a kiss at the camera, at her. “Trivial.”
Sitting across from Cooper, the DEA section chief, Hart Kipfer, drummed his fingers on the tabletop. He was forty and balding in all the wrong places but, like Dupé, he was highly respected by all the operatives in the room. “A smart man would head for the border. Self-preservation first, payback later, when he felt safer.”
“Exactly,” Celina said.
The profiler agreed. “It doesn’t fit with his personality to take these kinds of chances.” Smile.
“It’s like he’s flaunting himself at us.” Celina stared at the frozen man on the screen again. “Risking everything, when he could disappear to Mexico or South America and lay low until the worst is over. He has a complete, multi-layered business in place down there even though the Mexican federales took out a bunch of his connections in conjunction with our arrest. He still has contacts and people willing to risk their life for his. Why break out of prison and then not run?”
“Prison changes a man,” Cooper interjected. “Especially the intelligent ones like Londano. They lose their future and start taking things one day at a time. Risk doesn’t matter. Revenge does.”
Dupé checked his watch. “Understanding Emilio Londano’s motivation is important to figuring out his next step, but not necessarily critical. Celina?” She broke her stare at the monitor and Dupé continued. “Will Emilio follow you back here?”
“He tracked me to Des Moines. And then to the safe house. Whatever else is on his agenda, it does appear he’s after me. He’ll come to California.”
The profiler nodded agreement; several others around the table did as well.
“If he was truly after you,” Lana said, “why didn’t he get you at your apartment?”
This was another thing Celina had had more time to consider. “Thomas interrupted him, I think. He probably wanted me to find Ronni and the others before he kidnapped me or tortured me, or whatever he was going to do. Thomas showed up and threw his plans off track. Self-preservation won out that time.”
“How lucky for you.” Lana’s voice held the slightest trace of sarcasm.
Was she imagining it? Not likely since most of the men in the room dropped their eyes to the table. Everyone except Dupé and the DEA chief.
Agent Rios, the fugitive apprehension agent sitting off to the side, gave Celina a supportive smile.
Dupé steepled his fingers under his chin, considering. “I don’t believe he’s stupid enough to come after you now with a nationwide manhunt and a five million dollar reward on his head. Too risky.”
“He seems to like risk.” Forester spoke for the first time. “And a challenge. Hell, he got himself out of prison without so much as a burp.”
“So how do we catch him?” Kipfer asked, but the question was directed at Cooper.
“That would be my job,” Rios interjected, standing up. “While the manhunt continues, I’ll coordinate follow-up on the calls made to the tip hotline. I’ll also be looking at alternative ways to catch Londano in case none of those pans out.”
“Has anyone called yet?” Celina asked.
Sara gave her a quirky smile. “About two hundred last I checked.”
Celina heard Cooper whistle softly under his breath.
“Two hundred?” she repeated.
“He murdered an FBI agent and severely injured three others in order to get at the New Face of the FBI. He’s got a lot of people’s attention.”
“Any credible leads?” Cooper asked.
Rios shook her head. “So far, no. Few calls have come from people here, in California, or from Iowa. Fewer still match our exact description or timeline. At this point we have three to five sightings that seem viable.”
Three to five? How pathetic. Celina held back a sigh. “What can I do to help?”
“For now,” Dupé told her, “I’m sending you to a safe house with guards posted around the clock.”
“But,” Celina started, and Dupé held up a hand to stop her. She ignored it. “But this is my case,” she continued. Seeing Dupé’s eyes darken, she added, “Sir.”
Lana doodled on a page in her Day-Timer. “There are no safe houses available. I checked a few hours ago and they’re all full.”
Dupé showed disbelief. “Seven safe houses between San Diego and L.A. and they’re all full?”
“L.A. has sent us three witnesses in protection for the Buffico trial. Northern CA sent us two families displaced by mudslides, and West Coast ATF is using the last two for temporary housing for some of their special units in training at Camp Pendleton. We’re booked.”
Frowning, Dupé shook his head. “Do you still have your apartment here in Carlsbad?” he asked Celina.
“I sublet it before I left.”
Dupé rubbed his chin with his fingers. “Get a hotel room and bill it to me.” He shot Forester a look. “You’re staying?”
Forester gave him a brief nod. “I’ll bunk with her.”
Celina’s smile fell off her face. Lana stopped doodling and chuckled under her breath.
Cooper cleared his throat, and Celina refused to look at him, knowing he was enjoying the image of her and Forester sharing a hotel room.
“My group can help with hotline tips,” he offered.
Dupé stood up, pushing back his chair. “Good.” He gathered papers and his PDA. “I have a Homeland Security meeting in Washington tomorrow at oh-eight-hundred hours. I’ll be back by fourteen hundred tomorrow and we’ll meet here at that time to reevaluate our position.”
He pointed at Celina. “S
tay in the hotel room and lay low. Agent Kipfer will set up a security detail for you. Lana will see to it you have everything else you need.”
Lana sighed, and Celina recovered from her shock. “Yes, sir,” she said, sending Lana a merciless smile. “Thank you, sir.”
“I’ll see you when I get back.” His eyes lit on Celina’s face for a second too long and Lana briskly closed her Day-Timer and stood. Following Dupé out of the room, she cast one long scathing look over her shoulder at Celina.
Celina glanced at Cooper. As Lana disappeared from sight, the two of them shared a smile.
“Let’s find the restroom,” Sara said, grabbing Celina’s hand and hauling her toward the door.
“Why?” Celina grabbed her overnight bag from the floor as they passed.
“You’ll see.”
A minute later, Celina was in the twentieth floor women’s restroom, shedding her clothes and watching Sara shed hers. “You really think Emilio’s back in California already and watching this building?”
“It’s a possibility, isn’t it?” She handed Celina her shirt, grabbed the one Celina handed her in exchange. “From a distance, few people would be able to tell us apart. If he’s out there and decides to follow me instead of you, I’ll catch him.”
She dropped her eyes, kicked her left foot into the heel of the right boot, and slipped it off.
Celina put on the pink shirt and start buttoning. When Sara had pulled the other boot off, she scooted them across the concrete floor to her. “Anything I should know about your relationship with him?”
“He’s both charming and vindictive.” Celina took the jeans Sara handed her and tugged them on. They were tight and a little long. She zipped them up anyway. “When he’s ready to kill me, he’ll want to do it himself, slowly and privately.”
Sara thought for a moment, sliding into Celina’s jeans. “So he’ll try to get close to me.”
Celina sat down and drew on one of Sara’s boots. It was a perfect size seven and a half. “Be cautious. He’s very resourceful.”
Their clothing exchange completed, Sara motioned for Celina to turn around. She wrapped Celina’s hair in a low bun that she clipped at the base of Celina’s neck. Celina then helped Sara muss her hair up so it looked more like hers.
