The Jury Master

by Robert Dugoni

  Franklin peered up at him as if he were listening to a foreign language, then shook his head in disgust. “Both of you wait right here,” he said. He walked in the direction of a forensic team poring over the Chevy and the truck.

  “Not bad,” Molia said. “I think he almost bought it. You lost him though on ‘hero.’ Got to know your audience. To Franklin I’m as close to being a hero as Schwarzenegger is to being a governor.”

  “Sorry about your car,” Sloane said.

  Molia looked at the bullet-riddled Chevy. “What the hell, maybe it’s time I buy something with air-conditioning.” He turned back to Sloane. “Earvin Johnson?”

  Sloane shrugged. “Franklin doesn’t look like a basketball kind of guy.”

  “He’s not, but Magic Johnson is six foot eight and black. I don’t think anyone would mistake you two for twins. Maybe you should have tried John Stockton.”

  “Stockton? Slow white guy. I’m a slow white guy. I like to dream, too.”

  Molia chuckled. “Maybe. But neither of us just dreamed what happened. Whatever you did or said today, you pushed some buttons. They were willing to kill me, but not before they knew where you were. That tells me their primary objective was to get back that package Joe Branick sent you. Any idea what would make them that nervous?”

  “Not yet.”

  A second officer approached. Molia introduced Marty Banto.

  Banto looked at his watch. “Hate to be you. Maggie isn’t going to be happy about her pot roast.”

  “When I tell her I have to get rid of the Chevy she’ll love me.”

  Banto reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. “I traced that telephone number for you. It’s for an address in McLean, Virginia, a woman named Terri Lane.”

  “McLean?” Molia asked.

  “Apparently she wasn’t making fifty bucks a pop giving blow jobs in alleys, but don’t bother driving out there.”

  “Dead?”

  “Gone, and left in a hurry. McLean police took a ride for me. Said they found a half-full glass of wine on the table, the lights and stereo on, and a bath towel on the floor. A neighbor confirmed seeing Ms. Lane get into her Mercedes with a suitcase and drive off. So far her credit cards are clean, and probably will be for some time. I don’t assume she was accepting Visa or Mastercard. She could hide forever.”

  “We’re in the wrong line of business.”

  “Maybe, but I can’t imagine anyone paying to have sex with either of us. The other name you asked me to check out—Charles Jenkins—no luck. Couldn’t find anything about him anywhere. You sure he exists?”

  Molia looked to Sloane.

  “He exists,” Sloane said, more certain than ever that Jenkins had been, or still was, CIA.

  “Thanks for trying.”

  Banto nodded. “Ho get a hold of you?”

  “Peter? No, why?”

  “Called the station looking for you. I told him to try your cell. Didn’t know someone was using you for target practice. He said that assistant U.S. attorney called him again and was more than a little upset about an unauthorized autopsy. What the hell did you do, Mole? . . . Mole?”

  Tom Molia had started for the Chevy out of habit, stopped abruptly, and turned back to Banto, his hand extended like a panhandler’s. “I need to borrow your car.”

  75

  THE MOTRIN HAD dulled the pain enough so that he could sit up in the bed without every limb screaming. The fog in his head, as heavy as any that had blanketed his Camano farm, continued to clear, and the images in the room started to come in real time, no longer delayed like a B-grade Japanese movie. Alex sat in a chair at the side of the bed. The tall, lean man who stood in the doorway now paced a path at the foot of the bed. William Brewer, the director of the CIA, was impeccably dressed in a starched and fitted white tab-collar shirt, cuff links, and a navy-blue tie. A gold chain circled his right wrist. His salt-and-pepper hair matched the color of the pinstripes in his suit, the jacket of which now hung over the back of a chair. His beard was heavy, though the strong smell of cologne indicated that he had just shaved, perhaps following an afternoon workout. He had the physique of someone who played squash or racquetball regularly. His facial expression was of someone who had just paid a lot of money for a disappointing meal.

  “I received a call from the Mexican Directorate of Intelligence wanting to know why we were interested in an organization that has been extinct for thirty years.” Brewer paced the room as he spoke. “I had no idea what he was talking about, though I didn’t tell him that. He said he got a call from the station chief in Mexico City, asking for information on a right-wing revolutionary group calling itself the Mexican Liberation Front, specifically on a man calling himself ‘the Prophet.’ That request apparently came from Joe Branick.” Brewer stopped pacing and fixed Jenkins with his best bureaucratic stare. “You want to tell me what this is all about, Agent Jenkins?”

  Despite the pain, Jenkins couldn’t suppress a smile. “Mr. Brewer, I haven’t been called ‘agent’ in thirty years.”

  Brewer nodded. “I know. I read your personnel file. You’re supposed to be crazier than a loon.” He looked to Alex. “But Agent Hart says it isn’t so. She also says you’re the best bet we have of finding out what’s going on, and I believe her about both things.” Brewer checked his watch. “The problem is, if something is going on, I need to know quickly. Because in about ten minutes the president is going to address the nation and confirm a report out of Mexico City of an agreement to substantially increase the amount of oil and natural gas this country purchases from Mexico. When he does, it’s not going to make us many friends in the Mideast.” Brewer swung the chair on which he’d draped his jacket backward and straddled it, settling in. “Agent Hart filled me in on Joe Branick’s theory about a possible revival of this group, the Mexican Liberation Front. I want to hear what you have to say.”

  “It’s not a theory.”

  “The director of Mexican intelligence thinks it is. He said they found nothing to indicate that organization continues to exist, and he did not hide his amusement that we would concern ourselves with an organization that has been extinct for thirty years. He said they have modern-day terrorists. They don’t chase ghosts.”

  “They did in 1973,” Jenkins said. “So did we.”

  “El Profeta?”

  “That’s right.”

  Brewer nodded to the round table behind him, on which a copy of the manila file lay open. “I read your file about him. But let me tell you, while you were drifting in and out of la-la land we pored through a considerable dossier maintained on that organization and that man. Every indication is that el Profeta either never existed or is dead. There hasn’t been a rumor of him for three decades.”

  “The indications are wrong.”

  Brewer inhaled and exhaled deeply, eyeing him, not convinced but not willing to dismiss Jenkins outright. “All right. Tell me why.”

  “Because the Mexican oil market is sacrosanct. Castañeda is not about to enter into an agreement that will open the door for American oil companies to get back into the country.”

  Brewer picked up a copy of the afternoon Post so Jenkins could see the headline. A Mexico-U.S. oil summit in Washington, D.C., was said to be imminent.

  “You’re wrong. He already has. The president will confirm a summit day after tomorrow, starting with a ceremony Friday morning on the South Lawn.”

  Jenkins shook his head. “You’re wrong. He’s agreed to a summit. There will be no oil agreement.”

  “The negotiations are a done deal, Agent Jenkins. The summit is for show.”

  “It will be a show, all right—just not the show everyone is expecting.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s orchestrating the summit.”

  “Castañeda?”

  “Yes.”

  “You think he’s el Profeta?”

  “No. Too young. But I do think he’s doing el Profeta’s bidding.”

&nbs
p; “And el Profeta is orchestrating the agreement and the summit?”

  “El Profeta is orchestrating the agreement because he knows Robert Peak. He knows what Peak promised the American public and how Peak intended to keep that promise. And he used that like bait to lure Peak into the negotiations.”

  “Why?”

  “To get close to him. He nearly did in South America, but Branick’s death changed that. So he had to change plans. He’s resourceful. He’s also persistent and patient. Why not? He’s been waiting thirty years for this. So he tells Castañeda to go public with the negotiations, to force Peak’s hand—which he knows will work because he knows Peak is an arrogant son of a bitch who only cares about his career. That necessitates a summit, and in a hurry.”

  Brewer shook his head. “You’re asking me to believe that one of the most notorious terrorists in Mexico’s history, a man believed dead for thirty years, is not only alive but is secretly orchestrating confidential negotiations?”

  “What the hell.” Jenkins shrugged. “I’m crazy.”

  Alex stood, trying to broker a compromise. “What the director is saying, Charlie, is that he’s finding the statistical probability of something like that very difficult to swallow.”

  “I don’t give a shit what the director is having difficulty swallowing.” He turned his head back to Brewer. “What I know, Mr. Brewer, is that statistical probabilities do not apply to this man. I studied him. I tried to get in his head so I could figure out who he is: revolutionary, religious zealot, genius—likely all three. And what I learned is that sometimes fate and destiny can take precedence over mathematics and science, that the human spirit cannot be calculated, that what people are willing to do and how long they will wait to do it, when properly motivated, is often beyond human comprehension.”

  Brewer stood. “Maybe so, but I have to deal in realities.”

  “Well, make no mistake about it, he’s very real.”

  Brewer rubbed his forehead. “Then tell me this. Based on everything I’ve read, including your file, this summit goes against everything that man believed in. Why would he do it?”

  “Because, as I told you, there will be no agreement, and he knows that. What’s motivating him is not politics and oil. It’s something much more primal.” He looked at Alex. “The kind of motivation one gets when people take from you everything you’ve ever loved, and you’re unwilling or unable to forget.”

  “And what would that be?” Brewer asked.

  Alex answered for him. “Revenge.”

  76

  TOM MOLIA SKIDDED the Jeep to a stop at a small staircase that led to a metal door at the back of the stucco-and-brick building. He left the keys in the ignition and pushed out of the car, pointing to a blue Chevy Blazer parked in the shade of a tree in the corner of the lot.

  “That’s Ho’s car.”

  “That’s good.” Sloane jumped from the passenger seat and hurried around the car.

  “No. It’s after five. Ho doesn’t work after five.” Molia pulled on the door handle. Locked. “Shit. He also never locks this door.”

  He vaulted over the stair railing and sprinted up the alley, Sloane limping to keep up. At the front of the building he pulled open two glass doors and rushed down the hall to a door with a smoked-glass window. Stenciled letters identified it as the office of Peter Ho, Jefferson County medical examiner.

  “Stay behind me.”

  Molia pulled the Sig and opened the door into an empty waiting area, crossed it, and opened an inner door that brought the nauseating odor of formaldehyde. The smell grew stronger as they crept down a darkened hallway and emerged in a room of tables that resembled large metal baking sheets. A bright light illuminated a dark green body bag on one of the tables. Sloane heard the hum of a motor, perhaps the air-conditioning. Otherwise, the room was deafeningly quiet.

  Molia raised a hand, a signal to stop. He disappeared into a doorway that Sloane assumed was an office, emerged, shaking his head, and pointed to the rear of the room. They stepped past a large stainless steel box with multiple drawers and took up positions across a door frame at the back of the room. Sloane gripped the door handle, thinking of Melda’s lifeless body, and waited for Molia to nod. Then he flung the door in. Molia swiveled inside, gun extended.

  A bathroom. Empty.

  They stood in a moment of uncertainty, Molia scanning the room, running a hand over the bristles of his hair until his eyes came to rest on the green body bag on the metal baking sheet. Sloane knew immediately what he was thinking. If the coroner had gone home, would he have left a body out? They started back across the room, eyes focused on the bag. The shadow appeared in his peripheral vision, creeping across the floor like spilled ink. A door on the stainless steel box had swung open, and the metal tray inside shot out like the tongue of some huge animal, knocking them both off balance. A body sat up, screaming.

  The sheet fell away, the scream becoming laughter.

  “You son of a bitch. I finally got you! After all . . .” The man sitting in the tray paled an ash white.

  Molia was in a crouch, the barrel of the Sig locked on the man’s forehead.

  “Tom?”

  Molia lowered the Sig and pulled the man from the tray by the collar of his shirt. His legs buckled, unsteady.

  “Goddamn it, Peter, I nearly killed you. What the hell were you thinking?”

  Peter Ho looked stunned, afraid. “It was a joke, Tom.”

  Molia turned from him, walking in circles like a caged zoo animal, spitting his words, making the sign of the cross repeatedly. “Jesus H. Christ, Peter! Jesus H. Christ! Goddamn it to hell! Shit!”

  Ho looked to Sloane, but Sloane couldn’t find any words. His stomach remained lodged in his throat.

  Molia collapsed onto a wheeled stool like a fighter at the end of a round, physically and emotionally beaten. “I’m sorry, Peter. Shit. I’m sorry.”

  “What the hell happened, Tom?”

  Molia slid back his chair and stood. “I need a drink. You still got that bottle of Stoli?”

  Ho retrieved three sterilized glass test tubes from a cabinet, pulled a bottle of vodka from one of the drawers in the reefer, and poured them each a shot. They drank without hesitation. Ho refilled the tubes twice as Molia told him about the two men in the woods, and about Sloane’s theory that Parker Madsen was behind much of what was happening.

  “Banto said you called—something about Rivers Jones knowing about your autopsy. I half-expected to see you on one of your tables.”

  Ho looked stricken. “Yeah, he called.”

  “What exactly did Jones say?”

  Ho shook his head. “He was ranting and raving, Tom, telling me he’d have my license, wanting to know why I’d disobeyed his direct order to cease and desist.”

  “Did he say how he found out?”

  “Apparently their coroner detected my biopsy. I denied it, but I was also tired of listening to the little prick, Tom. I told him to go fuck himself. He can have this job. I’ll go back to private practice and make a lot more money.”

  “Okay, Peter, okay,” Molia said, trying to calm him.

  “Jesus, Tom, do you think they’d really try to kill me?”

  After what had just happened in the woods, Sloane knew that the answer to that question was a definite yes.

  “Nobody is going to kill you, Peter. But right now I want you to think about taking a couple of days off—get away from here for a while. Take your family and go do something fun.”

  “I already considered that after I got the call from the sister.”

  “Whose sister?”

  “Joe Branick’s sister.”

  “Aileen Blair?” Sloane asked.

  Ho turned to him. “That’s the name.”

  “What did she want?” Sloane asked,

  “She wanted to know the results of my autopsy. Maybe I was still pissed from talking with that asshole Jones, but I said some things I shouldn’t have, Tom. I told her she should question the accu
racy of any autopsy the government provides her, that I had reason to believe her brother did not kill himself. After I hung up and calmed down I decided maybe that wasn’t too bright.”

  “Well, what’s done is done,” Molia said.

  “They’re going to kill me.”

  “Nobody is going to kill you, Peter. Where are you thinking of going?”

  “The kids have been after me about taking them to Disney World ever since you preempted me last summer.”

  “A public place—good.”

  Ho looked suddenly scared. “I better call home.”

  Molia put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right, Peter. I had a black-and-white dispatched to the house.”

  “That is going to scare the crap out of Liza. I better get home. Liza must be jumping out of her skin.”

  They helped him put the body on the tray back in the reefer. Then Ho walked into his office and emerged wearing a light blue windbreaker. Sloane and Molia followed him to the back door and down two flights of stairs, talking as they went.

  “Why are you here this late, anyway?” Molia asked. “You never work after five.”

  “Paperwork is due to County at the end of the month. I always put it off until the last minute, then spend three nights of hell getting it done. With all the shit that’s been going on, I got behind. That’s why I didn’t have the music on and I could hear your car drive up. I looked out the window and saw you get out and head for the back door. I figured you were coming to scare the crap out of me again.” Ho reached the bottom landing. “I told you I was going to have Betty start locking this door.”

  “You’ve been telling me that for years. I didn’t think she’d actually do it.”

  They emerged in the parking lot. Ho turned and used a key to lock a dead bolt. “Neither did I. But I’ll tell you this, after getting in that box I’ve decided I want to be cremated.”

  “You almost had the chance.”

  “I did get you, though, didn’t I?”