by DL Barbur
The Federal Courthouse was right across the street from Central Precinct. We drove past the place where Al had been shot, and within sight of the place where I’d been abducted. My balls actually hurt for a second remembering the kick to the groin. I remembered that time in the trailer, especially the way Dolph had rubbed himself against me, and my mind kind of skipped a beat for a second.
Now that I’d had some sleep, I was beginning to realize how far out on the ragged edge of fatigue I’d been. I still wasn’t one hundred percent. I could have corked off for a long nap right here in the Suburban. I was clear-minded enough to realize Dale had been right. I needed a break.
We parked the Suburbans in the guarded parking garage under the courthouse and rode an elevator up to a bland waiting area. Bolle checked his phone and looked at his watch.
“They’re about to interview Lubbock. If you think you can avoid breaking the door down and beating the shit out of him, you can watch.”
I nodded and followed him through a warren of corridors. A plain-clothes US Marshall checked our ID, then led us into a cramped room full of audiovisual equipment. A bored-looking tech sat inside, making sure the equipment was working.
On the monitor, Lubbock sat passively, his face bandaged. One eye was swollen completely shut, and his face looked asymmetrical. The US Attorney for Oregon, Ana Burke walked in. I recognized her from when she’d been a Multnomah County deputy prosecutor. I knew her to be a very competent, smart woman, who had somehow managed to secure a political appointment anyway. She took a seat, organized her notes, and tugged on her right earlobe.
That was apparently the signal. The tech pressed the record button, and on the wall behind Lubbock, a small light illuminated.
“Before we begin, Mr. Lubbock, I need you to confirm that this is being recorded, and you’ve waived your right to have an attorney present.”
“Yes,” Lubbock said. He had a slight lisp, probably because of the stitches in his lip.
“Yes to both of those Mr. Lubbock? That it’s being recorded, and you’ve waived your right to an attorney?”
Burke was being extra careful. Henderson Marshall had millions at his disposal, and Burke knew if she was going to go after him, every step she took would be scrutinized by defense attorneys.
“Yes, to both,” he said. “I know it’s being recorded, and I don’t want an attorney.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Lubbock had been a cop long before I was hired. Surely he knew better than to talk to Burke without an attorney. Prisons were full of people who thought they could lie their way out of a situation. I’d put quite a few of them there myself.
“Good,” Burke said. “Now, let’s start at the beginning when Mr. Todd first approached you.”
Lubbock began to talk, halting at first, then with greater fluency. Reading between the lines, Todd’s recruitment of Lubbock was a classic seduction, not of the body, but of the ego. Lubbock had always been the subject of subtle ridicule in the Bureau, and he knew it. He’d made his bones by ass kissing during the brief tenure of a police chief that had been brought in from the outside. For some reason, that chief liked the cut of Lubbock’s jib. The chief’s tenure had been brief. The only thing that united the various warring factions inside the department was the threat of an outsider sitting in the chief’s chair. After his patron had been gone, Lubbock was still a lieutenant but would go no farther.
Being approached by a real deal operator, a former Delta Force and CIA guy had made Lubbock feel like one of the guys. By a twisting series of internecine bickering, he’d been placed in charge of the Person Crimes department in the Detective Division, a job usually held by a Captain. We’d seen a fall off in clearance rates, and a couple of minor personnel scandals and none of the up and coming Captains had wanted to sit in the hot seat, so we’d wound up with Steve Lubbock.
At first, Todd had met Lubbock for the occasional lunch, where he’d share tidbits of information about Cascade Aviation, and dangle the idea of a retirement job in front of Lubbock. After a while, Todd’s questions became more direct, asking for information about the Bureau’s counterterrorism investigations, security at the reservoirs, that sort of thing. Henderson Marshall also ran a security company called Transnational Resolutions, and Lubbock assumed he’d been asking because he was fishing for a city consulting contract.
Then the gifts had started: opera tickets, a free vacation to Europe, things that Lubbock’s soon to be ex-wife always wanted. The requests for information became much more specific, and also started to cover any active human trafficking investigations. At some point, Lubbock must have realized he’d compromised himself, but by then it was too late. It was a classic agent recruitment, the sort of thing intelligence officers were supposed to do in other countries. Officially, they weren’t supposed to do it here, but if you believed that, you probably believed in Santa Claus too.
When Gibson Marshall was arrested, Todd had borne down with full force, becoming vaguely threatening, and demanding constant updates on the investigation. He’d even demanded a copy of the investigative file. Lubbock had thought about coming clean, but he’d chickened out and provided Todd with up to the minute updates on our status and location.
By the time Mandy had been beaten and almost killed, Lubbock was in so deep there was no way out. Todd owned him. So when Todd told him to pull all the security back from Powell Butte Reservoir at a certain time, Lubbock had desperately wanted to believe it was a ploy to detonate a small device, that wouldn’t hurt anybody, but inspire the city to spend millions on upgraded security.
One of the things I noticed as he talked was it was all about him. He’d been complicit in Mandy being beaten almost to death, abetted human trafficking of teenage girls, and assisted in a terror attack on US soil, but as he talked his whole spiel was about how he’d been a hapless victim. The thought that maybe the badge he wore obligated him more than the average person never seemed to occur to him. He was so pathetic I couldn’t even get worked up enough to be angry with him.
Burke circled back and started asking clarifying questions. Bolle looked at his watch.
“We need to head back. Your turn to be deposed is coming up.”
I nodded and we slipped out. I followed Bolle to the elevator.
“What kind of plea are they giving Lubbock?” I asked.
Bolle didn’t meet my eyes for a second. I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach that had nothing to do with the elevator.
“He’s going into WitSec.”
The Federal Witness Security program, colloquially named as “Witness Protection.”
“So he’s walking? He helped Mandy get beaten, facilitated a terror attack, and shot me in the chest and he’s walking?”
Bolle still wouldn’t look me in the eyes. I was too tired to be pissed. I guess at this point nothing surprised me anymore.
The elevator stopped at our floor.
“Sometimes to catch the big fish, you have to let the little one go,” Bolle said. “This way we don’t have to explain the multiple facial fractures, and the fact that he’ll likely never see out of that eye again. Think about that the next time you arrest somebody.”
With that, he got off the elevator and walked down the hall.
I almost let the door close so I could ride the elevator down to the ground floor and walk out. But Alex was still somewhere in here.
Besides, I needed to see this thing through. After that though, I was going to walk away from all this and never come back.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The rest of the day passed in a familiar pattern of sitting in a bland waiting room until it was my turn to be interviewed. First, I gave a deposition to one of the assistant US Attorneys for Oregon, a guy in his forties with a bad comb-over. There were no surprises here. He knew exactly what questions to ask, and more importantly, what not to ask. I knew the right answers, and the whole thing was over in about an hour.
The grand jury hearing wasn’t much harder.
This group of sixteen jurors were in the middle of their run, so they were still fresh enough to be interested, but they had been at it long enough that they didn’t ask lots of questions about things that didn’t matter. Over the years I’d had some grand jurors throw me some real curve balls, mostly because they watched too many cop shows on TV, but these folks mostly sat quietly and listened in rapt attention as I described being kidnapped off the street in Portland, the search of the trailer and compound, the shootout at the reservoir, and finally the evidence that had led us to Lubbock. There were quite a few wide eyes when I described running into the machine gun fire at the reservoir, and I as I told it, I felt my stomach clench up. I had the story down pat by now, and it was over with quickly.
As I exited the jury room, Alex was on her way in, so I didn’t get a chance to talk with her. In the waiting room, Casey was doing something on a laptop that I found indecipherable, Dalton was taking a cat nap, and Eddie was reading a thick Russian novel. I sat there for a while, lost in thought, relieving the moment that Struecker had been shot over and over in my head. I knew eventually I was going to have to let it go, but for right now I worried over it like a dog with a bone.
Finally, Alex was done, and Bolle led us into a conference room. He was full of nervous energy, like a kid on the first day of school. After a few minutes, Burke came in.
“The grand jury voted to indict Rickson Todd on over thirty felonies,” she said without preamble. Everybody in the room relaxed. Maybe this had all been worth it after all.
“I could probably indict Henderson Marshall right now, but I couldn’t convict him,” she continued. “I need you to keep working. Marshall and Todd are the biggest threat to our national security since 9/11, and I want to put both of them in prison.”
She paced the room in front of us.
“Marshall has millions. He also has powerful friends. This isn’t going to be like forcing a plea bargain out of some low-level drug dealer. This case will probably go to trial, and every single facet is going to be scrutinized by the best attorneys Marshall’s money can buy.”
She looked at Bolle, then at me. “The slightest hint of prosecutorial or investigative misconduct will get picked apart and questioned. This thing could take years between trials and appeals. The case package you present to me has to be absolutely clean if I’m going to proceed.”
That was a pretty loud and clear message. I wondered how much she knew about what had really happened. I didn’t envy Burke. This case was a giant hot potato. There was no telling how many worms were in this can. Marshall was probably only one of many people involved. She was in her early fifties. She would be lucky if the whole thing was finished before she retired.
It was the sort of thing that would make or break a career. If she won, she’d be the prosecutor that took down a massive conspiracy to conduct a terror attack on US soil. If she lost, she’d be a laughing stock. Even if she won, she’d no doubt make some powerful enemies.
I wondered how much more of my life I wanted to devote to all this. I looked over at Alex. Her mouth was set in a hard little line and she was picking at an imaginary piece of lint on her dress.
I wondered if it would be easier if both Todd and Marshall caught a bullet in the head. It worked out pretty well for Marshall junior.
Burke excused herself, and Bolle stood up.
“You’ve all done outstanding work. As of a few minutes ago, Rickson Todd is a Federal fugitive. We’re putting his name and description out quietly at first, to people in agencies we trust. But within a few days, there’s a good chance you’ll see him on the FBI’s ten most wanted list.”
“In the meantime, I want all of you to get a break. We’re officially on stand down for two days. We all need a break. Tomorrow, Drogan, Byrd and I are going to escort Struecker’s body home to the East coast. Tonight, we’ve got some activities planned for back at the base that will hopefully help everybody relax.”
Some of us blinked at Bolle’s mention of “activities.” I hoped to God we weren’t going to be doing a ropes course, or trust falls or something like that. I wasn’t particularly in the mood to be social.
Bolle led us back down to the Suburbans in the parking garage. I realized that even inside the supposedly safe confines of the Federal building, my head was still on a swivel. I was checking doors and corners, looking at the hands and waistbands of everybody we encountered in the halls. Bolle was right. I needed a break.
The ride back to the factory was silent. Each of us was involved in our own thoughts, and fighting our inner battle with fatigue. Bolle did a bunch of texting on his phone on the drive back, which was unusual for him.
As we pulled into the parking lot, I smelled grilling meat. There was a big pickup truck parked outside the garage door, and a big grill, which was the source of all the lovely smells. Dale was wearing an apron and flipping over steaks as we rolled up, and his son Robert was setting up folding chairs and tables.
Bolle gathered everyone around, then stepped back as Dale handed the grill tongs over to Robert and walked up.
“I’ve been wanting to find some way to thank you folks, and this was the best I could do. You’ve all put in some hard work, and put yourselves on the line, to put those men that hurt my daughter where they belong. I don’t even have the words for what that means to me. No matter what happens, I owe each and every one of you a debt. You’ll always have a friend in me and my family.”
Behind him, Robert nodded. I realized Dale was on the verge of tears, and I was choking up a little myself.
It turned out it was just what we all needed. After a week of gunfights, kidnappings and digging dead men out of the dirt, everyone needed to relax and let off some steam. There was enough food for everyone to be full several times over, and just enough beer for everyone to have two, but not more. That was a shrewd choice. I rarely drank more than a couple of beers in a sitting, but tonight I could have easily given in to temptation and gotten blotto.
By accident or design, Dale was sliding into the role of the group’s senior sergeant. Bolle sat uncomfortably in a chair, as if afraid he might have to make small talk with somebody. I wondered if he’d ever eaten off a paper plate before. Dale made the rounds, making sure everybody was fed, and initiating small talk. I got to see a different side of Dalton. He was a funny bastard, with an almost inexhaustible supply of stories and anecdotes from his world travels. Eddie was just as funny, and soon the two of them had us laughing so hard we forgot the events of the last few days.
Alex sat next to me, and as we sat there in the warm hazy glow of a food coma, her hand kind of naturally found mine. For a while, I could sit there and pretend we had a normal life together, that we were a couple at a social event with friends from work. I guess in a way that was true, but most jobs didn’t involve dodging machine gun fire.
Dalton finished one long, complicated story involving a misunderstanding with an Afghani rug merchant. Henry seemed to have a kind of hero worship thing going for Dalton, and was oblivious to how close Casey was sitting next to him. I wondered if Alex and I weren’t going to be the only two fraternizing co-workers. When the laughter died down, Alex squeezed my hand and cocked her head towards the trailer.
We made our farewells. Eddie gave me a knowing little grin, but nobody said anything crass.
I followed her into the trailer. I stopped in the little kitchen, took off my pistol, unloaded it, and put in a drawer. Alex stood there with her arms across her chest, and I just looked at her, not sure if I should say something, or hug her, or what.
“I don’t know what to do,” I finally said.
“Everything is just so complicated right now,” she said. “I don’t really want to talk. Just come here.”
That was a relief in more ways than one. I just pulled her to me and smelled her hair, grateful that she was still willing to be there with me. After a while, she kissed me and then things progressed from there.
We made slow, quiet love. Afterwards, I think sh
e was crying a little bit, but she turned away from me and I wasn’t sure.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I woke up surprised at how good I felt. The problem with the trailer being parked inside the factory was there was no way to tell what time it was if the garage doors were rolled shut. I padded around quietly so as not to wake Alex and finally found my watch.
Damn. It was almost noon. That’s why I felt so good. Sixteen hours of sleep was a fix for numerous ills. I managed to dress without making too much noise. Alex rolled over and muttered in her sleep, then was still.
I felt naked walking out of the trailer without a gun, but I made myself do it anyway. I was afraid more rustling around in the trailer would wake Alex, and I’d resolved to start taking some steps towards being a normal human being again.
I followed the smell of coffee to the watch room. Henry had the duty apparently. He was rumpled-looking as ever but had a certain satisfied expression that I recognized. Good for him.
He was playing with his airplane modeling software when I walked in. He gave me a wave.
“Coffee is fresh,” he said.
I grunted my thanks and filled a mug with pure liquid goodness. Henry was a coffee snob, and could always be relied on to have a good brew on hand. It was black as midnight, with a perfect, oily sheen on top. I’m not sure what beans he was using but he managed to make coffee as good as it smelled. It took a sip and instantly the fog lifted from my brain.
Henry must have sensed my suddenly enhanced cognitive abilities, and decided it was ok to try to communicate with me.
“Bolle, Drogan, and Byrd are on their way east with Struecker’s body,” Henry said. “They are going to escort the coffin to Boston, then Drogan and Bolle are flying back. Byrd’s staying for the funeral. Apparently, he knows Struecker’s family.”
