Damage Control

by John Gilstrap

  “It’s not a security issue, Paul,” Harriett said, sealing the deal. “Let me do my job. You go back downstairs and do yours.”

  That final comment felt to Gail like a throw-down, leading her to believe that these two had a past.

  No one said anything for about ten seconds as the situation evolved into an uncomfortable standoff. Harriett wouldn’t even give Volpe the tiny victory of walking away from him. Instead, she waited while he rang for the elevator and disappeared behind the closing doors. At least the car came quickly.

  When they were alone in the lobby, Harriett turned to Gail. “Okay, what’s going on around here?” Her tone was more plea than demand. “Why is everyone so crazy?”

  Gail’s stomach flipped, but she covered it. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re a cop,” Harriett said. “And you’re here. Please don’t play games. I’m scared.”

  Jonathan Grave often said that life was one big poker game. Now, Gail had to play her hand carefully. “I’m here to help, Ms. Burke. But you must understand that my business is with Reverend Mitchell. I’m happy to listen to you and answer the questions I’m able to, but I can only be but so forthcoming.”

  That sounded really good, she thought.

  “Something terrible has happened in Dr. Mitchell’s life,” Harriett said. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s affecting everything. She looks terrible. She’s stopped taking any visitors. She’s positively gray.”

  “Perhaps it’s the sex scandal,” Gail offered. Cops were all about advocating for the devil.

  “No. That was an embarrassment and a distraction. I was here for that. That was never as big a deal as the media made it out to be.”

  Gail scowled. She was a minister who had sex with a seventeen-year-old boy. How was it possible to make a big enough deal about that?

  “Please don’t judge,” Harriett said.

  So much for Gail’s poker face.

  “You don’t begin to understand the pressures that Reverend Mitchell is under.”

  “I’m not here about any of that,” Gail said. Just speaking of this stuff made her feel like she needed a shower.

  “I understand,” Harriett said. “This new thing. I have no idea what it’s about but I know it’s bad. It’s tearing her apart.”

  Gail’s cell phone rang. She fished it out of her jacket and looked at the number. Fisherman’s Cove. “Excuse me,” she said to Harriett. She turned away and pressed the connect button. “Hello?”

  “Are you alone?” It was Venice, and there was urgency in her tone.

  “No.”

  “Oh.” Disappointment. “If you can extricate yourself from Jackie Mitchell, we have better leads for you to follow.”

  “That’s not possible,” Gail spoke harshly, as if confronting a subordinate. She hoped that Venice would be able to read between the lines.

  “Quickly, then,” Venice said. She relayed the news about the Georgens and the Cantrells. “We were thinking that it might be better to build from the bottom up instead of starting at the top.”

  “I’ve got it,” Gail said. She clicked off, staying in character even as her mind raced for the best way to go. Fact was, she was already here. While a direct confrontation with the head of the snake would likely result in a fusillade of denials, it was sometimes helpful for an adversary to know that you knew they were up to no good.

  On the other hand, you only got one shot at a first drink from the well. If Jackie Mitchell outmaneuvered Gail and got the upper hand, Mitchell could get the first shot at the Georgens and Cantrells, causing them to clam up forever.

  Gail decided to play the hand she’d been dealt. “Sorry about that,” she said, turning back to Harriett. “What do you suspect the problem with Dr. Mitchell might be?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Now who’s playing games?” Gail accused. “You engineered this opportunity to be alone with me. People who ‘have no idea’ don’t do that.”

  Harriett took three steps over to the little sofa that sat along the wall opposite the elevator doors and sat down heavily. “I only screen the phone calls, you know? I don’t listen to them.”

  Gail sensed that she was supposed to know what Harriett was talking about. “Except sometimes,” she helped.

  Harriett tried to look wounded, but in reality looked like she’d been caught in the act.

  “You brought it up, Ms. Burke,” Gail said.

  Harriett inhaled deeply to prepare herself. “I’ve only done it a couple of times. When I thought that Dr. Mitchell might get taken advantage of. You can tell from the tone in some people’s voices. She can be so trusting sometimes. Naïve, even. That’s actually how she got involved with that boy. He swore to her that he was eighteen.”

  “Again, I don’t care about that,” Gail said. “What did you hear on the phone calls?”

  “There were a couple. It started with this creepy guy named Abrams. He had a thick New England accent, and just gave me the creeps. He had a scariness about him.”

  Gail’s heart skipped. She’d dealt with a similar malevolent presence in the past. That name wasn’t Abrams, though.

  “Do you know him?” Harriett asked.

  Great intuition, Gail thought. “I don’t think I know anyone by that name.”

  Harriett didn’t look like she bought the answer a hundred percent, but she didn’t pursue it. “Well, Abrams would call on behalf of Mr. Hainsley, a major contributor to the Crystal Palace. He would talk to Dr. Mitchell and arrange off-site meetings.”

  “Where?”

  “All over Scottsdale. Always in a public place.”

  “How many meetings?”

  “A lot. Ten or twelve, I’d guess.”

  “And who is Mr. Abrams?”

  “I have no idea. Dr. Mitchell never mentioned him, and since I wasn’t supposed to be listening, I couldn’t bring it up.” She dropped her voice by half. “Thing is, Dr. Mitchell always said yes to the meetings.”

  “That’s significant?”

  “Sheriff McLain, Dr. Mitchell runs an empire, okay? You have no idea how many moving parts there are, how hard she works. If she didn’t say no to people—frequently—she’d never have time for anything. It would all fall apart.”

  Gail waited for the rest.

  “She didn’t just say yes, okay? She dropped everything, like right now, to jump through hoops for him. She’d be gone for a couple of hours, and when she got back, it was like she’d sold a part of her soul. Whatever it was, it was eating her alive. I hated seeing that. She deserves better.”

  “You must have some idea of what’s going on,” Gail said.

  Harriett started to say something, but checked herself. She geared up again, and again stopped. This time, the silence prevailed.

  “Does it have something to do with the kidnappings in Mexico?” Gail fired the question like a weapon.

  “You know?” Harriett gasped.

  Gail stayed in character. “This would be the perfect time to tell me everything you know, Harriett. If anything happens to those children, your window for negotiation will slam shut with startling speed.”

  Harriett’s look of shock morphed into a look of horror. “You think I had something to do with that?”

  “If you didn’t, I think you know who did. You at least know who would know. Under the law, that’s called being an accessory. You go to jail for that. This is your one and only chance to set it right.”

  “Those children were taken by drug lords,” Harriett said. “How can you think even for a minute that—”

  “The timing, Harriett,” Gail interrupted. “Think. When did the phone calls start?” This was pure bluff. “And when did Dr. Mitchell’s mood start turning dark?”

  Harriett closed the loop quickly. She covered her mouth with her hand as the truth dawned on her. “Oh, my God. How can that be?”

  “That’s what I’m here to find out.”

  “I don’t know anything, Sheriff. You have to believe that.
”

  Gail offered a soothing smile. “I believe that you don’t think you know anything. I also believe that you’ve heard significant and important information. You just don’t realize it.”

  “I really haven’t.” Panic was beginning to set in.

  “You really have. You just haven’t thought it all the way through. For example, when Mr. Abrams called and asked to speak with Reverend Mitchell, what did he tell you?”

  Harriett shrugged. “Nothing, really.”

  Gail scowled. “He just said, ‘Hi, I want to speak to Jackie Mitchell’ and you said okay?”

  Harriett made a face. “Of course not. He said he was calling on behalf of Mr. Hainsley.”

  Gail sighed heavily. “Work with me here. You’re the assistant to a very powerful woman. No one gets past you without a compelling reason. What was Abrams’s compelling reason?”

  “He said it was personal,” Harriett said. “When I pressed him for more, he wouldn’t give it. He said, ‘When you tell her it’s Mr. Abrams calling, I guarantee that she’ll take the call.’ Turns out he was right. I told Dr. Mitchell what he said, and she took the call.”

  Gail’s bullshit alarm started to buzz in her head. “You’re telling me that you didn’t do any research on Mr. Abrams, even though these meetings had such a negative impact on your boss?”

  Harriett blushed. “I checked a little.”

  “And what did you find?”

  “Nothing, actually.”

  Gail waited for more.

  “Okay, I heard him mention All American Industries as a company name. They’re very big donors to the cathedral. When I searched our database, though, I didn’t find his name.”

  Gail recognized the company from Venice’s list. “They’re new donors, aren’t they?” she asked.

  There was that shocked look again. “How do you know this?”

  “Knowing things is how I make my living,” Gail said.

  The elevator dinged, drawing Gail’s attention, and halting their conversation. It always happened this way. Just when you think you have control of a conversation somebody interrupts and—

  It all registered in the space of a heartbeat.

  She saw a shotgun. A man in a suit held it at port arms, poised across his chest to make room for it among all the other men and firearms in the elevator car.

  The man with the shotgun made eye contact with Gail when the doors were still only six inches apart, and he brought the weapon to bear, aiming through the expanding opening.

  She moved without thinking, grabbing a fistful of Harriett’s blouse and diving sideways onto the floor, pulling Harriett down with her. They were still in the air when the shotgun fired. Above and behind, Gail more sensed than saw the cushions of the sofa erupt in a cloud of fabric and foam rubber.

  Harriett screamed, but Gail had no idea if she’d been hit, or was only frightened. She didn’t care. She didn’t have time to care.

  By the time Gail rolled to her stomach, her Glock was already drawn and ready. That first shot had established the rules of engagement. The guys in the elevator were here to murder her, and that gave her license to shoot to kill anyone who showed his face.

  They seemed to realize it, too, because no one stepped out. There was a lot of shouting, a lot of commotion, but no one showed himself. When the doors cycled closed, someone stuck the barrel of a weapon out just far enough to cycle it again.

  Their diddling gave Gail the opportunity to move, and she decided to capitalize on it. “Are you hurt?” she asked Harriett.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “I-I don’t think so.”

  Rising to a knee, Gail one-handed her Glock, aiming it at the cycling doors, and with the other, she smacked Harriett on the shoulder and pointed to the exit door to her right. “Go to the stairs,” she ordered. Access to the emergency exit wouldn’t require them to pass in front of the elevator.

  “But what—”

  The guy with the shotgun—Gail saw now that it was a Winchester pump—pivoted out of the elevator car with the weapon to his shoulder, ready to shoot.

  Gail nailed him high in the forehead. He fell dead in a spray of bone and brain matter without touching his trigger.

  Harriett screamed again. “Oh, God—”

  “The stairs!” Gail shouted it this time, vaguely worried that she’d given too much information to the bad guys. Then again, given the options from the fourteenth floor, the emergency exit wasn’t all that hard to anticipate. It sounded as if the guys inside the elevator were beginning to panic. It didn’t help that the dead guy’s foot was keeping the door from closing.

  Harriett scrambled along the floor, her face and belly barely above the carpet, and her extremities moving as if she were trying to gain footing on ice.

  As always happened to Gail in high-stress encounters, time seemed to slow and she became aware of every detail of her surroundings. She held her aim at the elevator, covering Harriett’s escape. These guys had been caught off guard by the fact that Gail was right there when they opened the door, and that had thrown them off their plan. But ten seconds had passed since then, and one of their own had been killed. They weren’t going to stay under cover for long. And when they showed themselves, they were going to be pissed.

  When Harriett finally found her feet, she bolted out the emergency exit, slamming the door open hard enough for it to rebound off the concrete block wall of the stairwell.

  As Gail had expected, the attackers interpreted the noise as their cue that it was safe to move.

  One took a half step out the door, but the muzzle of his pistol wasn’t pointed at Gail, so she fired two quick rounds into the stainless-steel frame, just to drive him back inside, and then it was time for her to go, too.

  Never breaking her aim, she backed quickly toward the door, found the latch with her left hand, and slipped through, into the escape well. Harriett’s footsteps three floors below made a strange flap-clack sound as she tried to run in her girlie sandals.

  Gail searched for something with which to block the door shut, but a glance told her that it was fruitless. She started down the stairs quickly but carefully, never turning her back on the door from the fourteenth floor. This was when she would be most vulnerable, and she wasn’t about to give them a fleeing target to shoot.

  Why weren’t they following? She was a nearly stationary target. If these attackers had a mind in their head, they would—

  Then she got it.

  “Harriett!” she yelled. “Stop!”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “ What the hell was that?” Tristan shouted. Fresh blood spatter dotted his face. He stepped over the headless body and stormed toward Jonathan. “You’re supposed to protect me! He was going to kill me! You used me as bait!”

  Jonathan dropped the partially spent mag out of the grip of his MP7 and exchanged it with a fresh one from a pouch on his vest. He made a point of not engaging the enraged teenager. He pressed his transmit button. “Mother Hen, scene is secure. Six visitors sleeping.”

  “I copy six sleeping,” she confirmed. Her voice telegraphed her stress.

  “How could you do that?” Tristan railed. “What kind of coward hides in the bushes with an arsenal of weapons while the unarmed kid damn near gets killed?”

  “I’d go easy on the C-word, there, kid,” Boxers growled from the other side.

  “Fuck you!” Tristan yelled, whirling to face the Big Guy. Think Chihuahua versus mastiff.

  Boxers recoiled, his face a combination of surprise and amusement. Not many people talked to him that way. Fewer still remembered it afterward.

  “What, you think this is funny?” Tristan asked. “This is fun for you? A new game to see how close we can come to getting the precious cargo killed? Is this what you do for grins? Jesus, do you know how many people you’ve killed in the past two days?”

  “Which is it?” Jonathan asked. He kept his tone soft and reasonable.

  �
��What?”

  “I said, which is it?”

  “Which is what? What are you talking about?”

  Boxers was already at work collecting intel from the pockets of the deceased, stripping them of identification, notebooks, and anything else he could find and stuffing them into his rucksack for later evaluation. When that was done, he’d move on to the Sandcat and strip it, as well.

  Jonathan continued, “Well, on the one hand, you’re pissed that we didn’t shoot sooner, and on the other, you’re pissed that we’ve killed too many. I don’t think you can have that one both ways.”

  “You know what I mean,” Tristan said. “That guy was this close to blowing my brains out.”

  “Yet your brains are still tucked in and his are hanging out his forehead.” Jonathan holstered the MP7 and made his first real eye contact with Tristan during this exchange. “I did not use you as bait. I left you alone so that if shooting started, the bullets aimed at me would in fact stay away from you. Sometimes Lady Luck gets in the way. You happened to be right where that point man walked.”

  “But you waited—”

  “—until exactly the moment when I had no choice but to shoot.” Jonathan completed Tristan’s sentence for him. “As for the numbers killed, trust me. I’d be thrilled if all I had to do in my job was to ask for the peaceful return of hostages and then get them. It so rarely happens that way.”

  The sound of radio chatter drew Jonathan’s attention to the Sandcat. Someone was asking for a situation report.

  “Big Guy!” Jonathan yelled.

  “I heard.”

  “Let’s drag these bodies off the road and get the hell out of here.”

  “What’s happening?” Tristan asked.

  Jonathan grabbed a corpse by his shirt collar and started dragging it back toward the vehicle he’d arrived in. “These guys are from the Mexican Military Police,” he explained, a little embarrassed by the strain in his voice caused by the physical effort. “They knew the terrorists who kidnapped you by name, and they were out here specifically looking for the vehicle that we took from the church. In my book, that ties them to the terrorists who took you and your friends.”