Fatally Bound

by Roger Stelljes

  “Mr. President,” Sally interjected, “you can’t get yourself involved in this. You made the call, which was the right thing to do. The investigation will have to play out and we’ll manage it to the extent we have to.”

  “Ms. Kennedy is right, sir,” Mitchell added agreeably.

  “I get that, but my question still stands to you, Thomas, is there anything else you need? More manpower, resources, money, assistance from another agency, is there anything else you need? Anything? Tell me, and we’ll make it happen.”

  The Judge sat back and listened to the whole conversation, his hands steepled under his chin, deep in thought. The former prosecutor, federal judge and attorney general knew a thing or two about investigations and he had a thought. “If I might, I have a slightly off-the-wall suggestion that will help you, Thomas, and at the same time I think will appease Bill Donahue.”

  • • • •

  8:03 P.M.

  Dara Wire breezily walked out to the curb at Reagan National and waved for a cab which pulled up immediately. She felt good, really good actually; light on her feet and she suspected if anyone was paying particular attention, she would have been glowing.

  Her phone buzzed in her purse. She pulled it out and looked at the message and smiled.

  Martin.

  Her trip to Miami had turned into the perfect mix of business and pleasure. Her name became known in political circles since the election and her phone had not stopped ringing ever since. Her private security consulting business was booming. The Judge, and a grateful president, sent nonstop business her way. It was their way of thanking her for the investigative work during the election. Along with the book she was working on with McRyan, she literally hadn’t had a day off in six months. It had been even longer since she had a date. She loved the fact she was piling up a ton of money, but a personal life would be nice too.

  This latest trip involved evaluating and implementing a security system for a wealthy Miami family heavily involved in Florida politics. The family’s lawyer, the tall and handsome Martin Gonzalez, spent three days assisting her in the process of developing and implementing the security plan for the property. There were long days followed by late night dinners and then drinks. Martin had a lot of game to him, no doubt, but he was attractive and he didn’t hide his attraction for her, nor, after a few days, did she to him.

  When the job was finished, Martin invited her to his ocean-front condo in Key West. She’d spent the last three days there and she wasn’t sure she ever saw the water. The last text was from Martin, inviting her back down as soon as her schedule permitted. She was pretty sure she would make sure her schedule would permit that soon.

  A taxi cab pulled up. She slipped down inside and gave the driver the address to her new Arlington townhouse, one that she’d barely moved into. She settled into the backseat and began sending a reply text to Martin when the familiar face of the Judge appeared on her phone.

  “Hi, Judge, by the way, thanks again for the referral to the Buchanans in Miami. … Yes, they were great, just great. … What? And the lawyer? How in the hell? Do you know everything about everyone?” she asked, leaning back and smiling, slouching in the seat. She’d told nobody about Martin and yet the Judge knew. He knew everything. “You’re unbelievable. I think it would have sucked to have been your daughter. So what can I do for you?”

  • • • •

  St. Paul. 10:42 P.M.

  Mac and Lich were hunched over the laptop, watching the Ghost Crew work their way efficiently through the Sloane house. The crew defeated the security system within fifteen seconds. Another man had the safe open, lifting its contents which consisted of jewelry and cash. Additional jewelry had already been taken from the master bedroom and now most of the crew was in the third-floor art gallery, removing paintings and moving them down to the garage.

  There were police teams east and west of the house. The St. Paul contingent of Riley, Rock, Paddy and Double Frank were in the neighbor’s garage to the east. Minneapolis detectives and old friends Ed Gerdtz and Bud Subject had a team in the garage of the house to the west. Mac picked up the radio and spoke softly.

  “Riles and Bud, move your teams into place.”

  “Copy.”

  “Copy.”

  Mac looked to his right and saw Riles’s group slither out of the garage and along the fence of the alley. To the left, the veterans Gerdtz and Subject led the team out the side door of the garage and crept along the fence line. Both groups stopped just short of the driveway, held position and signaled one another with thumbs-up.

  “We’re set, Mac,” Riles reported.

  “So when the surveillance team said the crew had a black Town & Country minivan at their rendezvous point, you knew their plan, didn’t you?” Lich asked.

  “I suspected. Getting into the house and cracking the safe, all that is the easy part. Getting everything out of the house?” Mac smiled. “Now that’s the hard part. That’s what’s been bugging me for the past three days since we knew this house was the target. How the hell were they going to get everything out without being seen? Black Town & Country just like the Sloane’s’? The pieces fell into place.”

  When the Chicago police pressed the fence looking to sell the stolen baseball cards, he pointed them in the direction of Xavier Foote. Foote was known to Chicago and had put together teams in the past. He was heavy on arrests but light on convictions, there being only one which led to a nickel stretch in Illinois’s Statesville Prison for robbery. That was nine years ago.

  After his incarceration, Foote moved back to Chicago and seemingly kept a low profile, working for his brother-in-law’s plumbing supply company as a sales rep. The job required significant travel around the upper Midwest. In reality, he may well have simply been operating for years, putting together a new team, as there were strings of unsolved robberies in Des Moines, the Quad Cities, Omaha, Madison, Sioux Falls and Fargo. The MO was always the same, high-end homes, in and out clean, stolen items never turned up in the cities of their origin and the crew disappeared without a trace.

  The Twin Cities task force, working with Chicago, tracked Foote back to the Twin Cities five days ago. That’s when Mac got the call to come back home. “You got us on to him, don’t you want to be around for the takedown?” the chief asked.

  Charlie Flanagan didn’t have to ask twice.

  Mac watched the laptop closely with a satisfied smile. The camera focused on the security pad also provided a view of the back stairway down to the garage. He watched the last of the crew heading down the back steps to the garage.

  “Riles, Bud, you guys set?”

  “We’re good, Mac.”

  “Thirty seconds, maybe a minute.”

  Mac moved back to the rear window to take it all in, his right hand resting on his Sig Sauer, just in case. The garage door started to open. Riley and his crew came around the fence from the right and Subject and his crew from the left. Eight cops in total were standing in position at the end of the driveway, thirty feet from the garage door. When the garage door opened, the good guys were waiting.

  “POLICE!” Riles yelled in his booming voice. “Put your hands where I can see them!”

  The driver and man in the passenger seat quickly complied. A team of four cops moved to the van’s left side and opened the sliding door. Three men exited, hands in the air, and walked out to the driveway and laid face down on the ground. Patrol units pulled into the alley and more police invaded the scene. Mac took it all in quietly, a satisfied smirk on his face.

  “Let’s go down,” Lich said, and led Mac downstairs and out the back door. By the time they reached the alley, everyone was in cuffs and lying face down on the driveway. Riles approached Mac, a huge smile on his face as he shook his head. “Unbelievable. Baseball cards,” he just shook his head. “We nailed these guys because of flippin’ baseball cards.”

  Mac just smiled as Riles walked away, calling the chief. Mac’s own phone started buzzing in his pocket. He p
ulled the phone out and looked at the display.

  “Who is it?” Lich asked.

  Mac showed the phone’s display to Lich.

  “She’s so hot,” Dicky Boy panted.

  Mac chuckled and rolled his eyes, “Dara Wire, as I live and breathe, how the hell are ya?” Mac asked enthusiastically. “You won’t believe what I’m doing right now. I’m standing here with Lich and we just took down this … Wait, what? … Say that again? You’re serious? … I know, I know, I know, you’re always serious, but really, he wants to see us in the morning? … Yeah, I saw that on the news. … Boy, I don’t know about getting involved in that. … No, I suppose you’re right, I can’t really say no to at least meeting. … No I don’t suppose I can. I’ll see you then.” Mac hung up.

  “What was that all about?” Dick asked.

  “I have to get on a plane and go back to DC.”

  “What for?”

  “I have a meeting at the White House,” Mac replied, a confused look on his face.

  “The White House, really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “With who?”

  “Wire, Judge Dixon and FBI Director Mitchell.”

  “What about?”

  “The Reaper.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “A unique perspective.”

  Washington, DC.

  Dara Wire was waiting in the arrival lane with her Range Rover when Mac walked out of the Delta Airlines arrivals door at 10:45 A.M., sharply dressed in a dark blue suit with a navy blue dress shirt and dark burgundy tie. Mac deposited his garment bag in the backseat and jumped in the front seat to find a large Dunkin Donuts coffee awaiting his arrival.

  “You know me so well,” he exclaimed happily as he took a long drink of the dark roast as Wire pulled away from the curb. He put the coffee back in the cup holder and glanced over to Wire and immediately noticed a difference in her. She had a relaxed, light happiness about her, a kind of glow.

  “Dara Wire,” Mac observed with a big cheese-eating grin, “you got laid.”

  She blushed, but gave him a very satisfied smile, “Repeatedly.”

  “It’s about damn time,” he replied approvingly.

  Wire maneuvered her Range Rover quickly through the midmorning traffic, the capital’s rush hour over for a good hour. They had met and become fast friends and temporary partners less than a week before the presidential election. Mac was working a murder of a Washington-based political blogger in St. Paul. Wire, a former FBI special agent, was working for the Thomson Campaign, watching the campaign manager for the vice president’s campaign, when their paths and investigations crossed. Judge Dixon, knowing both of their abilities, arranged for the two of them to work together. Their investigation saved the election. After the election, they were both offered and both quickly declined regular positions with the FBI. Wire had no interest in returning, having been cast out of the bureau four years earlier and now having a successful business that was making her serious money. Mac declined because he thought he might be done being a cop, and had even less desire to be a little fish in the big bureau pond. He simply didn’t need a job and was sitting on plenty of money.

  “You know anything more about this case?” Mac asked.

  “No more than I knew last night. The president, the Judge and the director want us to help. How exactly? I’m not sure.”

  “Does it have anything to do with the White House press briefing yesterday?”

  Wire nodded, “It does, but there’s more to it than that. The father of the latest victim …”

  “Let me guess? He’s politically connected.”

  “Extremely.”

  “That means money.”

  “It’s always about the money.”

  “You want in on it?” Mac asked.

  “Do you?”

  Since he’d arrived from St. Paul six months ago, Mac had been in the White House a half dozen times, although only one time outside of the West Wing and into the White House proper. That time was for a State Dinner, which, even for someone who detested politics and most politicians, was a bucket list kind of experience. Most of the time when he came to the center of world power, he was picking Sally up on a Friday or Saturday night on their way out to dinner. Today, for the first time, it was about business, or at least potential business. Mac wasn’t sure he wanted in.

  They checked in at the desk and made their way through the lobby of the West Wing. As they walked down the hall towards the Judge’s office near the Oval Office, Mac was grabbed by his right arm and dragged into an office. Sally quickly closed the door and pressed him up against the wall, wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a deep, soft, wet kiss.

  “Hi.”

  “H …h… hi. Wow,” Mac replied, trying to catch his breath. He hadn’t seen her in six days. “Deputy Communications Director Kennedy, does this mean you’re happy to see me?”

  She whispered seductively in his ear, “You have no idea,” then pecked him twice quickly on the lips again. “And later, I will show you. But for now let’s go to your meeting.”

  “You’re in on this too?” Mac asked surprised.

  “Yes, but I wanted to say hello privately first,” Sally replied as she led him out of her office and walked him down the hall to the Judge’s spacious office.

  Judge Dixon, or the Judge, was a large man in size and political stature and he had an office befitting his importance, sitting just thirty feet from the Oval Office. The Judge was a political operator without peer, having elected his second man president, this time his good friend former Minnesota Governor James Thomson. Now, he operated in the White House with an amorphous senior advisor title, yet everyone seemingly answered to him. Few understood Washington like him, how it worked, its nooks and crannies, where and from whom to get information and how to get things done. In the uber-polarized political environment of current Washington, DC, every politician, regardless of party, would take calls from, listen to and accept counsel from Judge Dixon. While most new administrations flail away in their first few years, getting their bearings, not the Thomson administration. James Thomson was a skillful politician to be sure; you don’t get elected president without being one. However, it was the Judge and his wise counsel that made the place hum and there had been far fewer of the usual missteps that befall most new administrations, the William Donahue situation notwithstanding.

  “You two say hello to each other?” the Judge asked with a wry smile as they walked in holding hands. Mac’s body language and perhaps the residue of Sally’s lipstick on his lips gave them away.

  “We did,” Sally answered, a satisfied smile on her face.

  “Thanks for coming, Mac,” the Judge said, extending his hand. “You and Dara,” then he pointed to his couch, “and of course, you both know Thomas,” Dixon added, pointing to FBI Director Mitchell.

  “Good to see you both again,” the director added, standing up and shaking hands with both of them.

  After ten minutes of pleasantries and Mac summarizing the bust of the robbery crew in St. Paul, the Judge got down to business. “Mac and Dara, we need your help.”

  “With the Reaper,” Mac finished, grabbing a chair in front of the Judge’s desk. “What can Dara and I bring to the investigation that the FBI can’t already provide?” he asked the Judge skeptically.

  “A unique perspective.”

  “Oh bullshit,” Mac retorted. “Political cover is what we bring.”

  “That too,” the Judge answered, unbothered. “Everything decided in this office, in this building, in this town, is political, why would this be anything different.”

  “The difference is, I don’t do politics,” Mac replied.

  “Oh bullshit.”

  “I don’t …”

  The Judge dismissed him with a wave, “There isn’t anything you wouldn’t do for Charlie Flanagan, is there?”

  “No, but he’s …”

  “… a politician, son. Oh sure he gives off this I’m just a cop swim
ming in these shark infested political waters story, but give me a damn break. A police chief is a politician and Charlie’s a damn good one. You don’t stay police chief for twelve years without being a really good politician,” the Judge counseled. “The director of the FBI is a politician. Cops work for politicians and you two are two of the best I’ve seen bar none. And I’ve been around, you know?” The Judge reached inside his suit coat pocket and pulled out a cigar and started twirling it in his fingers, something he did when he got going, thinking and operating. “Now, am I asking you and Wire here to get involved for political reasons? I won’t lie to you, Mac. It’s absolutely part of it. But there’s another part of this which is even more important.”

  “Which is what?”

  The Judge went for where Mac would be weak, where he would give in, where in reality, he would be any easy mark. “Women are dying, Mac,” he looked Mac directly in the eye. “There’s a sociopath out there killing young women, three of them now. And as Thomas will tell you, they have some ideas of what makes him tick, but they are nowhere in catching him. Regardless of what you might have heard in the media, they have zilch.”

  “One of the reasons I offered both of you jobs after the election is because you’re both really talented, gifted cops. Dara, you’re a great reader of people, and Mac, you’re an elite investigator,” Director Mitchell added. “I’m not blowing smoke up your asses. You both know I’m right. Right now, I need all the help I can get, the kind of help you two can offer.”

  “So what does this make us, your ‘in case of emergency break glass’ people?” Wire asked skeptically.

  “Something like that,” the Judge replied seriously. “Listen, this case became political once Donahue’s daughter was murdered. It will only get worse if we don’t find this guy. Donahue will only get worse. And the other two murders are in Pennsylvania and Maryland, so right in our neighborhood here. The media is all over this thing already and the attention, pressure and even hysteria will only increase if this guy keeps killing and leaving notes. You two have a history of … bringing difficult cases home.”