by Alex Kava
“Oh, he and his wife have been on our radar for some time.”
“Would have been nice if you had shared that when we pulled his body from the Potomac.”
“Agent O’Dell,” Kunze scolded.
“No, that’s okay.” McCoy smiled and waved a hand at Kunze, dismissing O’Dell and her comment even before adding, “I’ve already heard she’s a pistol.”
O’Dell had checked him out, too, learning everything she could, though there wasn’t much available. In the last twenty years, Agent McCoy had been promoted up the ranks, starting out as an immigration officer before moving to the DEA.
Somewhere she had read that he was a Texan, and she half expected a big and bold cowboy with a southern accent. Even in the confines of the office, he still managed a swagger, but there were no other signs. No Stetson, no cowboy boots, no decorative belt buckle. She was almost disappointed. Agent McCoy looked very much like an official government agent—square shoulders, a standard steel-blue suit to match his tie and eyes, polished black leather shoes, and slicked-back hair with just enough gray at the temples to make him look seasoned.
“What happened is unfortunate, Agent O’Dell, but we could hardly expect that you’d be running out to Alabama and tromping all over the Bagleys’ property, now could we?”
“I’m curious why not?”
“Excuse me?”
“If you knew it was Bagley in the river, and this was such a sensitive case, why weren’t your people at the Bagleys’ before me?”
This time Kunze didn’t hush or scold her. At a glance, she could see that her boss was also interested in the answer.
McCoy used that moment to sit down on the corner of Kunze’s desk, ignoring the assistant director’s look of disapproval. His perch kept him higher than everyone else, establishing an air of authority and making the rest of them all look up to him. It was an old trick. O’Dell had used it herself sometimes when questioning suspects. However, she had never done it with a colleague.
“We tend to measure our moves carefully, instead of running half-cocked.” He shot an irritated look at Kunze. McCoy no longer seemed amused by this “pistol,” though he didn’t mind continuing the metaphor. “We’ve known that Mr. and Mrs. Bagley were running drugs. We were waiting for the right time to raid their property so that we could use them to help make our case against George Ramos. We wanted to do as much damage as we could to Choque Azul. Are you familiar with them?”
“Agent O’Dell was responsible for putting Ramos behind bars,” AD Kunze said, and for the first time in a long time O’Dell thought she heard a hint of pride in her boss’s voice.
“Ah yes, that’s right,” McCoy said. “You went out to rescue him and his kids on his houseboat during a storm and ended up interrupting a drug pickup in the middle of the Gulf.”
He had to already know that. O’Dell couldn’t figure out why he was pretending it was news to him. She glanced at Senator Delanor. George Ramos had been her husband. He was the father of her children. She was the one who used her influence as the junior senator from Florida to get Kunze to send out O’Dell and the Coast Guard to rescue her family. It couldn’t be easy listening to McCoy talk about it so flippantly.
After all, the woman had winced when O’Dell accidentally called her Senator Delanor-Ramos just days ago. But she was a professional politician, and somehow she managed to keep her face impassive. O’Dell saw that the senator kept her hands in her lap, and she noticed that the interlaced fingers were gripped tightly together, almost in a stranglehold.
“It wasn’t until Ramos’s arrest that we discovered not only that he was a part of this Colombian cartel, but that he was the jefe, the boss man, for the entire southeastern region. His arrest last fall caused all kinds of shifts and tensions. We’ve learned that his son has been trying to take over in his absence.”
“His son?” Kunze asked, and looked to Senator Delanor.
“I knew George had a previous life,” Senator Delanor said. “In Colombia, long before I met him. Of course, I didn’t know until recently that he had a wife and a son. Or that he was still in touch with them . . . and taking care of them.”
“So did Choque Azul decide to get rid of the Bagleys before you got to them?” O’Dell asked.
“That’s what we thought initially, when you pulled Bagley’s body out of the Potomac. This cartel is known for their creative warnings. Torture and kill a stoolie, then dump him where he’s easily found. Keep any other members from even thinking about flapping their mouths to the feds. But they didn’t just dump Bagley and let him be found. They announced that they left a package in the Potomac.”
It only just occurred to O’Dell, and she looked at Senator Delanor. “You got the call.”
The woman’s eyes confirmed it before she said, “Yes, it appears it’s me they are warning.”
53
WHEN O’DELL DESCRIBED the spider bites on Robert Díaz’s body, Agent McCoy nodded as if he had already seen or expected the wounds he was looking at in the photos.
“They call him the Iceman,” McCoy said with an odd look on his face.
“No one knows who he is or what he looks like. I’ve been tracking him for almost a decade now, ever since I came to the DEA. He’s like a ghost. Those who claim to have seen him, or know something about him, end up dead before we can get to them. He’s Choque Azul’s assassin. These two floaters—I recognize his trademark. These were his.
“The Zetas and Sinaloas—their assassins use shock and fear by leaving the dismembered bodies of their enemies hanging near school yards or from bridges. The Iceman likes to be subtle. He seems to enjoy making his prey squirm as he tortures and destroys them slowly.”
“And the cockroaches?” O’Dell asked. “What exactly were they for?”
“Cockroaches?” McCoy sounded genuinely surprised.
She pulled out the photos.
“Robert Díaz’s mouth was duct-taped shut. When the medical examiner pulled it off, we found these five cockroaches in his mouth.”
“Oh my God!” Senator Delanor stared at the photos.
“Were they still alive?” Kunze wanted to know.
“Yes, very much so.”
“How is that possible?” the senator asked.
O’Dell was watching McCoy the entire time. “Hard to explain, but I’ve seen it before.” She couldn’t decide whether McCoy couldn’t believe that the Iceman would deviate from his MO or he was trying to figure out what it meant. “So are you still sure this was the same assassin?” she asked him. “That both of these victims were connected to Choque Azul?”
McCoy nodded. “Killers change up their signatures. As a profiler, you know that, Agent O’Dell. I’m still very certain both Bagley and Díaz were killed by the Iceman for Choque Azul. We already suspected the second package might be Díaz. He disappeared days ago, after some of our agents questioned him. He was captain of a commercial fishing boat that we’ve been keeping an eye on. A seventy-foot long-liner named the Blue Mist.”
He smiled at that. “It’s a subtle trick we’re finding they like to do. Choque Azul is ‘Blue Shock’ in Spanish, or something to that effect. They think it’s clever wordplay to use ‘blue’ or ‘electric’ or ‘shock’ for various names or codes. Even George Ramos’s houseboat . . .” He glanced at the senator, and O’Dell thought he looked like he enjoyed the woman’s slight grimace when he added, “It was christened Electric Blue.”
“So my very first instinct was correct when we pulled Bagley’s body from the river.” O’Dell looked at her boss. “You told me it didn’t have anything to do with drug cartels.”
“I honestly didn’t know.”
“That was my doing, I’m afraid,” Senator Delanor said. “When the message about a package in the Potomac came into my Senate office, I had no idea either, but I suspected it had so
mething to do with George. So I asked for Raymond’s help. George has made it no secret that he expects my help or he could cause me trouble.”
“Trouble? He’s in prison.”
The senator looked at O’Dell, and for a brief moment her porcelain veneer cracked enough to show the exhaustion and something else close to the surface that she was trying hard to suppress. Something she definitely didn’t want to be seen because she crossed her arms and sat back. She turned her head away as she said, “It’s complicated.”
She expected that to be enough explanation, which only made O’Dell angry. “Is it complicated or just embarrassing?”
“Agent O’Dell, you are out of line.” It was Kunze again.
“I could have been killed. I think I deserve more of an explanation. How exactly can he cause you trouble when he’s in prison?”
“You obviously have no idea.” Senator Delanor glared at her now. O’Dell had hit a nerve with the senator and she was glad. She was tired of the political bullshit.
“Being in prison hasn’t severed any of his connections,” the senator continued. “If anything, his arrest only strengthened and invigorated his henchmen . . . or whatever it is you call them,” and she shot a glance at McCoy. “George has always had a less-than-subtle way of getting my attention. His trial is coming up.”
“And your reelection.”
“Agent O’Dell, I’m warning you.”
“It’s okay, Raymond,” and this time she put up one of her delicate and manicured hands as if to stop him. “Probably both, Agent O’Dell.”
“But the Iceman is involved.” McCoy brought the attention back to him. “We don’t believe he was brought in just to deliver a few warnings. He’s cleaning up. And there’s a good chance these two victims are not the only two on his hit list.”
54
“TREVOR BAGLEY AND HIS WIFE were doing more than running drugs for Choque Azul,” Agent McCoy told them. He looked at O��Dell. “I understand you found a piece of child’s clothing in the woods.”
“That’s right. It looked like it was bloodstained.”
“We suspected that the Bagleys were keeping several children against their will.”
“And yet you didn’t do anything about it.”
“We were building a case.”
“While they were trafficking children.”
“Wait.” Senator Delanor was sitting on the edge of her chair. “What are you talking about? There were children involved?”
“Choque Azul’s newest business venture.”
“George would never be involved in something like that.”
“Really?” Agent McCoy stood up from his seat on Kunze’s desk so he could stand in front of the senator. “This is exactly what George is making sure that his people cover up. Because his precious trial is coming up and he doesn’t want any evidence connecting him to human trafficking. So his Iceman is eliminating the evidence.”
“I don’t believe this. Why haven’t I heard about it?” Senator Delanor asked.
“We’ve been trying to keep it under wraps.”
“While you build a case,” O’Dell interrupted. “Who cares if a few kids die in the meantime, as long as you build a strong case.”
This time she was surprised that Kunze didn’t reprimand her. She glanced at him, expecting it, but when he met her eyes she realized he hadn’t signed on for something like this. McCoy, on the other hand, was glaring at her, no longer amused and unable to contain his anger.
“You have no clue what it is that you stepped into, Agent O’Dell,” he told her.
“If it wasn’t for me, it sounds like you’d still be investigating, while the Iceman takes care of everyone on his list.”
“How do you know, Agent McCoy, that George’s cartel has started trafficking children?” The senator seemed to have regained her composure. “Maybe the Bagley couple were doing something illegal with children on their own?”
In that moment, O’Dell was stunned to realize Senator Delanor was still protective of her ex-husband. O’Dell was there the night they arrested him aboard his houseboat. He had taken their two children with him during a raging thunder-and-lightning storm. If that wasn’t dangerous enough, George Ramos didn’t seem to mind bringing his kids along while he picked up a shipment of cocaine in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.
Now O’Dell wondered if Ramos was delivering messages and packages for his ex-wife because he knew he still had some kind of hold on her. If she was willing to use her political power and influence to ask for help from Assistant Director Kunze, what else was she willing to do?
Agent McCoy, however, wasn’t so willing to appease the senator.
“A week ago, the Coast Guard stopped Captain Robert Díaz’s commercial fishing boat—the Blue Mist—in the Gulf of Mexico,” McCoy continued. “They brought on board a dog and its handler, expecting to sniff out cocaine under the full load of mahi-mahi. You know what they found instead? Five kids—three girls, two boys—all under the age of thirteen. American kids, from the States.”
“But the Bagleys—?”
“For the past year Trevor Bagley has been working as a fisherman off and on, independently contracted to the Blue Mist.”
O’Dell listened to Agent McCoy and couldn’t help thinking he was enjoying making Senator Delanor squirm a bit as he dealt out information piece by piece. She wondered what their past relationship was.
“So potentially everyone who was involved in this raid on the fishing boat could be on Choque Azul’s hit list? Is that correct?” O’Dell asked, but there was only one person she was concerned about. Agent McCoy had mentioned a dog handler. Somehow she knew it had to be Ryder Creed.
“Yes, we think that’s a possibility.”
“Tell me something, Agent McCoy. On the Bagley property there was evidence found that children may have been kidnapped and held against their will.”
“We believe so, yes. In one of the outbuildings there are signs that they may have been keeping several people against their will.”
“Your team that’s taken over—have they found any drugs?”
“Drugs? No, I don’t believe so.”
O’Dell looked at Kunze. “Sir, with all due respect, this isn’t a case for the DEA. This sounds like something the FBI should be in charge of.”
“What?” McCoy asked.
“Actually, Agent O’Dell is right.”
“Sir, I’d like to go back down and finish what I started.”
55
HANNAH WAS SURPRISED that Amanda didn’t argue with her. Either the girl did still have a healthy dose of fear of the people she had run away from, or she was used to taking orders. And doing so with much urgency.
Ryder had convinced Hannah to take the girl and leave. Dr. Avelyn had been able to identify the spiders that had hatched on Hannah’s counter. She had come to tell them the news as soon as she recognized them. Ryder heard that they were poisonous—the most lethal of all spiders—and immediately he had been anxious and pushing for Hannah to leave quickly, as if a hurricane were coming ashore.
It didn’t help matters that Dr. Avelyn said these spiders were rare in the States. According to her, these spiders usually take refuge in clusters of bananas grown in Colombia. She guessed that this bunch hadn’t accidentally made it past inspectors, but rather had been especially picked.
Now Hannah worried that Ryder had something crazy and dangerous in mind, but she realized that staying would not change his plans. This time she knew she wouldn’t be able to talk him out of it. She recognized that look in his eyes when he told her to pack her bags. Actually, she already had one packed and in her car. She had done it the night Amanda arrived. Even then she knew she might need to leave at a moment’s notice.
She had convinced Amanda that they needed to change her appearance
before they left. It was a five-hour drive and she didn’t want to take the chance that someone might be looking for the girl or happen to recognize her.
The box of hair color turned her into a brunette, making her look older, which seemed to please them both. Hannah thought she had done a nice job with the haircut—she kept the bangs and cut the rest chin-length to help hide Amanda’s face. As did the large-framed eyeglasses. Then there were the clothes—no more designer jeans. Hannah had borrowed from Andy—from her days as a vet tech—a blue smock uniform top and a pair of khakis. Even Amanda seemed surprised at the transformation. She no longer looked like an emaciated teenager but rather a young woman either coming home from or going to her job.
Hannah promised Ryder that she would call when they arrived at their destination. They had been on the road for only thirty minutes when they crossed the bridge over Escambia Bay. From the minute they’d gotten into the car, Amanda had been slouched in her seat with her earbuds in and her iPod on, but suddenly she sat up straight and asked, “Can we go see Pensacola Beach?”
“No,” Hannah told her. “We don’t have time for any sightseeing.”
“But it’s such a gorgeous day and I’ve been cooped up for forever. What will it matter if we’re a few minutes behind? We’re just going to some stupid hiding place.”
Hannah shouldn’t have been surprised that transforming the girl’s appearance would do nothing to change her attitude. She was still a whiny teenager.
“No,” Hannah said again.
The girl crossed her arms and pouted, staring out the window. Traffic on I-10 was crazy, as usual. No more than five minutes went by when Amanda sat up again.
“I have to pee.”
“Seriously?”
“I’ve done everything you asked me to do. Can’t you just stop and let me pee?”
Hannah checked her rearview mirror. With this much traffic it had been impossible to notice if anyone was following them. She took the exit for the first rest stop and kept her eyes darting back to her mirrors. Two vehicles followed them. She drove down the road designated for cars, slowed to a crawl, and watched as she passed several parking places. Both of the vehicles parked, but Hannah continued past the restrooms and headed back up the entrance ramp to the interstate.
