Back-Tracker

by Bob Blink

  The blast from the Sig was extremely loud in the confined space of the underground parking lot. Jake shot the man in the hip, not wanting to kill him if he could avoid it, yet wanting a solid hit that would end the confrontation quickly. He waited to see if another shot was required, but the one was enough. The man dropped whatever weapon he had been reaching for and collapsed against the side of the van groaning. The other stood rigid, not attempting to take any action, knowing that guns were pointed at him as well.

  Chapter 20

  It was time to call for assistance, and in that sense the shooting of one of the goons had been fortunate. Shooting one of the two suspects not only showed the remaining man they were deadly serious, but also reduced the number of individuals to contend with. While the cell phone coverage from the service area to the courtyard had been marginal, this far down into the underground structure there was no coverage at all. That meant one of them was going to have to go back up the elevator to make contact with the police leaving the other alone to watch over the prisoners. Jake would stand guard, because only Laney had any official standing with the FBI or police, despite the badge that falsely implied Jake was a Special Agent. He’d asked Carlson to send the ID with Laney after seeing how useful it could be when the two of them had started this investigation together a couple of months from now.

  First, however, was the matter of weapons. The wounded man had dropped his handgun. It was a Beretta, looking like the model the military had adapted a few years back, although from the size of the hole Jake could see in the muzzle of the pistol as it lay on the concrete floor of the garage he guessed it was the larger, .40 caliber cousin to the military 9mm. Jake covered the remaining man, while Laney performed a search. He located a compact .45 Kimber 1911 in the man’s belt, and a wicked looking switchblade in his back pocket. There was no ID of any kind on the man. A quick search of the wounded man indicated he was unarmed beyond the weapon he’d dropped. He also had no ID. The search had also revealed he wasn’t bleeding as badly as feared, at least externally. Jake wouldn’t want to take any bets on what might be happening inside.

  “I think you broke his hip,” Laney said when he had completed his search and stood beside Jake once again.

  “Make sure they send an ambulance,” Jake said. “I’d like to have a chance to question this one before he dies.”

  “You’ll be okay while I make the calls?” Laney asked.

  Jake nodded, and Laney headed off across the parking spaces to the elevator at the opposite end of the small parking area. That left Jake alone with the dead Ray, the wounded thug, and the very unhappy man who still stood with his arms outstretched as he leaned against the van where Laney had ordered him while performing the weapons search.

  “Let’s talk,” Jake suggested to the man, who shot him a look of pure hatred. “Here’s how this will work,” Jake said reasonably.

  “We’ll have lots of company soon,” Laney said when he returned a few minutes later. He withdrew his service Glock to support Jake. “You realize that Henry Ray’s murder is not a federal crime and therefore the local police will have jurisdiction here. They will be taking these two into custody, so any questioning we hope to do will be under their control. Perhaps there is something you want to learn before they arrive?”

  “I tried that while you were gone,” Jake replied, not explaining what he’d done and that he’d actually had to back-track afterwards. “This one isn’t going to talk no matter what. He actually would like to see his partner dead. Apparently he feels he might be a weak link, especially now that he is wounded and will die unless he gets the right care. He is also willing to take a bullet himself rather than talk. I assume whoever he works for would deal with him, and maybe his family, if he talks to us. I doubt he’d reveal anything. He isn’t convinced we wouldn’t shoot him afterwards anyway.”

  “You learned a lot in a short time,” Laney said impressed.

  “My own technique,” Jake replied.

  The elevator across the garage opened and a mother and father with two youngsters stepped into the garage. They started across the garage before the woman spotted Jake and Laney with their guns covering the spread eagle man. They quickly turned around and fled back up the elevator.

  “We’ll have to have the police place a guard on the elevators until this is concluded,” Laney said. They had been fortunate it was early on a weekend day and the rush of tourists had yet to start.

  They had heard the sirens approaching while they talked, and now they could hear the different cars gathering up the ramp and outside the entrance to the garage. Moments later the sound of squealing tires announced the arrival of reinforcements. While the sirens had been deactivated, the flashing lights hadn’t and as the vehicle came down the ramp, the reflected colored lights made it clear an official vehicle was coming into the garage.

  The police had arrived first, and the black and white patrol car pulled to a stop a short distance away. The two officers in the vehicle exited quickly with weapons drawn, covering the scene.

  “FBI,” Laney shouted, holding out his ID so they could see the badge. Jake self-consciously wore his own ID in his jacket pocket so the badge could be seen.

  Before the two patrolmen could ask any questions, the sound of additional vehicles coming down the ramp interrupted them. A pair of unmarked vehicles appeared, followed by an ambulance. The two unmarked vehicles pulled off to one side, while the ambulance parked close to the back and white. Given the smallness of the garage and the random way the vehicles were parked, there wasn’t room for any more vehicles if they were to hope to get out without backing up the ramp.

  Four individuals climbed out of the two vehicles, while the medical personnel hurried around to the back of their vehicle, opened the door, and withdrew a stretcher. Two of the new arrivals were dressed similarly to Laney, suggesting they were FBI, while the others were in plain clothes, but nothing like the FBI formal suits. They had to be SFPD detectives. One of the FBI arrivals was a woman, her long black hair shiny in the fluorescent lights of the parking garage.

  One of the detectives stopped and spoke quietly with the two patrolmen, who immediately came over and handcuffed the suspect, while the others headed over to where Jake and Laney waited.

  “You’re Laney?” the woman asked when she and her partner had approached close enough to speak without shouting. Jake had suspected from the dark hair, but now that she was close, he could see for certain that the woman was Asian. She was surprisingly good looking, in her late thirties, and obviously the senior agent since she’d asked the question.

  “That’s right,” Laney agreed. “This is Special Agent Bob Trask,” he added without missing a beat. Jake felt the lie would be obvious, but the others accepted the announcement at face value. Jake had already slipped his Sig out of sight into its holster. There were enough guns here, and his .45 Sig was clearly not FBI issue and might raise questions.

  “I’m special Agent Alisha Wang,” the woman said. “This is my partner Special Agent Nick Morely.” She indicated the man on her right with a slight nod of her head. Then she added, “The officer on my left is San Francisco Police Detective Terry Hudson. His partner over there talking to the patrolmen is Rudy Spangle.”

  Everyone nodded acknowledging the names.

  “We need to get someone up above to stop people from coming down here,” Laney said. “We’ve already had a family with kids come down the elevator.”

  “We’ve got it covered,” Detective Hudson replied. “There are men up top, and both the garage entrance on Larkin and the entrance to the service area on Polk are sealed off for now. No one is getting in or out until we are done here.”

  “What exactly happened?” Agent Wang asked.

  “These two suspects were transporting a body from where they had hidden it in the restaurant to their vehicle when we intercepted them,” Laney explained. “We were waiting when they transferred the body from the trashcan into the van, and when we identified who we w
ere, that one decided to go for his gun.”

  “Who shot him?” Wang asked.

  “I did,” Jake admitted.

  Wang noted this. She was about to ask something else when Detective Spangle interrupted.

  “How come you knew about this body and were watching for these two and we didn’t know anything about it?” he asked.

  Wang and Morely seemed interested in this question as well. If the murder had happened sometime in the past, normal procedure would have required the FBI to inform the police of the fact. Wang knew that another group of police in Oakland had been sent to arrest a Charles Watson on an FBI warrant issued out of Washington D.C. earlier this morning. That was unusual as well.

  “It’s an unusual situation,” Laney admitted. “When we discovered that a switch had been made, and that Charles Watson had replaced Henry Ray, that’s the victim in the back of the van, we checked back and found where he’d been hidden. We hoped that someone would come for the body, and didn’t want a large police activity to chase them away.”

  “I see,” Detective Spangle said, but clearly he didn’t. “And why were you watching Mr. Ray in the first place?”

  “He is suspected of being involved in a federal crime,” Laney replied. They had worked this out with Carlson yesterday.

  “What crime is that?” Detective Hudson asked.

  “Kidnapping,” Laney replied. That would explain why the FBI was investigating Ray, although it wouldn’t explain to Wang and Morely why agents from Washington D.C. had been involved. That was a task that should have been assigned to their office. Laney could see that Agent Wang was curious, but had wisely elected to delay any question she had until later.

  “Kidnapping?” Detective Spangle asked. “I thought this Ray fellow was a reporter. Who did he kidnap?”

  “That’s something we will have to talk with Washington about,” Laney replied. “For now, that is sensitive information.”

  Detective Spangle wasn’t comfortable with the evasion and was about to pursue the matter when one of the medical technicians came over and indicated they were ready to take the wounded man to the hospital. Spangle stepped away to deal with the matter, arranging for a police escort and officers to stand watch at the hospital. While he was doing so, Detective Hudson was also pulled away to deal with the coroner who had just arrived to deal with Henry Ray.

  “What’s going on?” Special Agent Wang asked once they were alone.

  “It’s complicated,” Laney replied. “At the moment we’re not at liberty to explain. Suffice it to say, we need you to follow up with the San Francisco police. We need IDs on the two men, verification that Charles Watson is who he says he is, and also verification this is really Henry Ray. We also need the three of them questioned to find out who hired them. Watson is probably the weakest link in that regard. I doubt you will be able to get anything out of the two hit men.”

  “It sounds like you are planning on leaving?” Wang asked.

  “We have to report back to Washington. We’ll catch up with you at the office later today,” Laney promised.

  “Detective Spangle isn’t going to be happy about this,” Wang replied. “We have a good working relationship with the SFPD. This isn’t going to help maintain that.”

  “I’m sorry, but there is something else we have to do, and at the moment, it takes priority. We’ll be available to answer his questions later once Washington gives us approval to do so. Explain that to him for us.”

  Special Agent Nick Morely who hadn’t said much since the two FBI agents had arrived, suddenly spoke up. He looked directly at Jake.

  “You’re Bob Trask?” he asked. “I was trying to remember where I heard the name. You were in Washington during that terrorist thing a couple of months ago. I was there at the time. You’re the guy who some people say knows in advance what is going to happen, aren’t you?”

  Jake looked at Morely in surprise. Quickly he gathered his wits and replied, “I’m sorry, but that’s ridiculous. I wasn’t in Washington when that went down.”

  “Explain to Detective Spangle we had to leave,” Laney said, as he and Jake headed toward their car.

  Chapter 21

  Special Agent Alisha Wang watched as the rental car carrying the two Washington based agents disappeared up the ramp to the surface streets of San Francisco. She knew that Detective Rudy Spangle would be pissed. From long association with the policeman she was aware he had little patience, and having the only people who knew what had happened leave before completing their conversation would not sit well at all with him. This was not the way these things were handled, and she had to admit the whole situation had been unusual from the start. When she returned to the downtown FBI office she would be making some inquiries herself, but for the moment she had to deal with the fallout of the two agent’s unexplained actions.

  Her brown eyes scanned the area, and with both of the detectives out of hearing range, she turned to Nick Morely.

  “What kind of question was that?” she asked, referring to the question her partner had posed to Agent Trask.

  Special Agent Morely shrugged. “When they introduced themselves, the name struck an odd memory. The name Agent Laney gave for the other agent along with how atypically this is being handled is something I’ve encountered before. It all reminded me of something that happened in Washington a couple of months back.”

  “Washington?” Alisha asked.

  “Yeah. Remember I was sent back for a couple weeks of special training. While I was there that terrorist attempt was uncovered. The Agency needed every able hand they could find, and even those of us there for other reasons were pressed into service for a couple of days.”

  “What does that have to do with Agent Trask?”

  “I was paired with another agent, and somewhere along the line he pointed out Trask indicating the guy was somehow driving the whole effort. He claimed that Trask somehow knew what the terrorists were planning and had an uncanny ability to predict where they were going to strike. It was as if Trask had seen it all before, and was calling on that experience to point out where the weapons would be found.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Perhaps, but did you catch the look on Trask’s face? I surprised the hell out of him.”

  “Probably by the stupidity of your question.”

  “I don’t think so. He was surprised I’d heard of him. Think about the situation today. How did they know so much about this killing? They knew the killing was going to take place and were in position to know where the body would be found and where the two gangsters would be when they retrieved the stiff. They were in place to make the arrest.”

  Alisha looked at the stapled pages she’d been handed and the cell phone she’d been told held video of the two men recovering the body that Agent Laney had given her before leaving.

  “What did they gain by making the arrest this way?” she asked her partner. “If they knew so much, why didn’t they simply let the arrest be made the normal way?”

  Morely shrugged. “They want us to find out who they are and who hired them, so I guess they don’t know everything. But here’s something to think about. When this Trask was pointed out to me in D.C., no one called him a Special Agent. I got the clear impression he was a civilian helping out.”

  Alisha had other questions she’d like to raise with her partner, but there was no time. Detective Spangle was marching their way, his face showing his displeasure that Laney and Trask had left.

  “Where in hell are they going?” he asked curtly, pointing a thick stubby finger toward the ramp where the car had left moments before. “We’re not done here yet.”

  “Look Rudy, I don’t understand what is going on either. They said they had an urgent meeting elsewhere. They promised to catch up with us later.”

  Detective Spangle stared at the pretty FBI agent for a long moment. He and Alisha Wang had known one another for more than five years. They’d worked together on a number of cases and he’d al
ways found her up front and cooperative. Like himself, she was divorced, the toll of the job too much for a marriage. More than once he’d considered asking her out, but wasn’t comfortable with the gap between their respective positions.

  “I need to know how they knew about this killing and their formal testimony that these two goons came for the body,” he said after a long pause.

  Alisha held out the bundle of papers and the cell phone. “Agent Laney asked me to give this to you.”

  Detective Spangle looked at the offering. “What is this?” he asked finally.

  “I haven’t had time to look, but supposedly it’s a report of what happened last night when Henry Ray was killed and a video of the two men bringing the body down from the restaurant. Laney and Trask promised to meet with us later and fill in any details that are missing.”

  The Detective slowly reached out and took the items Agent Wang was offering.

  “I’d appreciate it if you would fax me a copy of those papers,” she said. “I’d also like the video when you get the chance. For now, this is a simple murder, and clearly your case.”

  “For now?” Spangle asked.

  “When Agents Laney and Trask left, they said something about a kidnapping. If this is related to a kidnapping, then depending on the circumstances, the responsibility might become less well defined.”

  “Wonderful,” Spangle said. “I wish someone would just explain what is going on.”

  Alisha Wang grimaced. “You’re not alone. Those two agents flew in from Washington and never contacted the local office. They called early this morning and asked us to coordinate an arrest in Oakland for a Charles Watson. Watson was apparently involved in the killing last night. The arrest warrant for Watson originated in Washington, and they have already made arrangements to have Watson moved to your facility downtown. They never informed anyone of the events planned here in Ghirardelli.”