Chapter 42
Leo sat in the visitor’s chair at the U.S. Marshal’s Service, willing himself to exhibit patience. He noticed his right leg jittering and stilled it. He knew how this game was played. If he displayed impatience, the interagency jockeying currently underway would simply take longer.
He risked a quick peek at his watch. It had been twenty minutes since he’d left Judge Cook’s courtroom to check in with Tactical Operations. Before he’d reached the office, Gregor’s cell phone had rung. He’d answered, not quite sure how he was going to play it, but it had turned out to not matter. Irwin had just barked out an address and told “Gregor” to meet him there with the files before hanging up.
Ever since, Leo’d been cooling his heels while the Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Air Marshals Pittsburgh Field Office and the Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal for the Western District of Pennsylvania worked out who was going to get the credit for collaring Irwin. The Supervisory Deputy United States Marshal had been coming back and forth between his own office and the chief’s office, eyeballing Leo each time he passed through the waiting area.
While he waited, the courtroom deputy trotted in to make copies of the order granting Mickey’s TRO and then trotted back out to disseminate the copies. Leo rapped his knuckles on the arm of the chair. No magazines, no art on the walls, no window. The waiting area seemed to be designed specifically to bore a person out of his skull.
Leo passed the time staring at a long, jagged crack in the plaster on the opposite wall. Finally, the door to the chief deputy’s office opened and the SDUM came out. Leo stood.
The SDUM was red-faced and resigned. The machinations had not worked out they way he’d wanted.
“You can make the arrest, but our office is taking custody of Irwin after you do so. We’ve got two Inspectors who just came off a witness protection detail. They’re going out with you.”
Leo didn’t react to the news. He said, “Sir, I’m going to need to borrow Irwin’s vehicle.”
“They don’t issue you fly boys vehicles?”
Leo started to explain that he’d left his official car out at the airport but the SDUM wasn’t interested in his story.
“Whatever, son. You can hitch a ride with Morgan and Pulaski.”
Morgan and Pulaski were probably the inspectors.
“Sir, I need to go in alone first—in Irwin’s car.”
The SDUM stared at Leo with tired, milky blue eyes.
“Work it out with Morgan and Pulaski. They’re next door.”
He gestured toward the door and went back into the chief’s office.
Leo checked his watch again. It had been twenty-seven minutes since Irwin called. He went next door to find the inspectors.
Morgan was a stocky white guy, average height, with brown eyes and brown hair, which he wore in a buzz cut in an attempt to hide the fact that he was balding. He deferred to Pulaski, who did all the talking.
Pulaski was the shorter of the two and bulkier. He had the physique of a guy who had spent years weight lifting, but his muscle was starting to grow soft with age and lack of use. He was completely bald and wore wire-rimmed glasses. Connelly thought he was probably still strong, just on the edge of out of shape. In another year to eighteen months, he would be doughy.
They both wore nondescript navy blue suits. Morgan’s tie was red. Pulaski’s was light blue. They were waiting for him, eager to go.
After the introductions were out of the way, Pulaski pushed back his chair and jerked a thumb toward the door.
“It’s been thirty-plus minutes since your boy called and we’re another twenty-five away from your rendezvous. Let’s hit this.”
He and Morgan holstered their guns under their jackets. Morgan opened a supply closet.
“You want a vest?” Pulaski asked, as Morgan pulled two bulletproof vests from a stack in the closet.
“I do. Thanks.”
Morgan reached back into the closet, grabbed a third Kevlar vest, and tossed it to him.
“I need a car, too.”
Pulaski gave him the stink eye. “Why?”
“Because he’s expecting his guys to come in their car. Someone needs to drive the silver Camry, and it doesn’t have a cage. I’ll drive the Camry, and you two follow me in a pool car to transport him back.”
They looked at each other. Morgan shrugged. He was right and they knew it.
They headed down to the parking area; when they got off the elevator, a deputy marshal working the motor pool jogged off in search of the Camry keys. He jogged back with them and tossed them at Leo.
“Hey, Connelly,” Pulaski said casually, as he and Morgan got into their car, “it was a pretty punk move to keep that cell phone when you turned the prisoner over.”
That had been a bone of contention between the Special Agent in Charge and the Chief Deputy; Leo had heard raised voices discussing that point while he waited outside the office.
“What’s done is done,” he said.
Morgan gave him a look.
Leo shrugged.
Pulaski waved it away with his hand.
“You know where you’re going? Ohio River Boulevard to the village square. Bistro’s on the main drag on the left.”
“Hang back once we get close. I don’t want to spook him.”
“We’ve done this before, Pilot Prettypants,” Morgan said.
Leo couldn’t help himself, he busted out laughing. “Pilot Prettypants?”
Pulaski chucked and, a minute later, Morgan cracked a grin.
They had to give him a hard time, interagency penis-measuring tradition required it. The truth was, they were all prepared to work together to take down Irwin.
In fact, although Leo was convinced the federal air marshals received better training, most of them didn’t have much opportunity to use it. These two inspectors were more active, protecting witnesses with mob targets on their backs. They’d have the instincts to act if Leo needed backup.
Leo and Pulaski programmed one another’s cell phone numbers into their phones, all three of them strapped on the vests, and the two cars swung out of the parking lot, with the Camry in the lead, nearly forty minutes after Irwin had called.
Leo rode an urban wave of green lights down Grant Street, with Pulaski and Morgan right on his bumper. Leo checked the rearview mirror. Morgan was driving and Pulaski was either subjecting him to a running monologue or singing along to the radio.
As Leo joined the line of cars merging onto the bridge, Gregor’s cell phone rang. He palmed it and read the display. It was Irwin again.
He put the phone on speaker and answered, hoping that when he spoke, the background noise would mask the fact that he was not Gregor.
“Yes,” he said in a clipped voice.
“Where the hell are you?”
“Uh, got lost.” Leo laid on the horn, just for the noise cover it provided.
The curly-haired woman in the blue minivan in front of him raised her head and put her hands up, palms facing the roof of the vehicle, unsure what his problem was. There were at least three kids in the back. One of them, a freckle-faced boy about nine, twisted around in his seat and shot Leo a double bird. His siblings rocked with laughter.
Behind him, Pulaski was the woman’s twin, hands in the air, miming confusion.
Irwin let out a hiss of frustration. “You two really are a pair of brain-dead twits. New location. Take Ohio River Boulevard—that’s Route 65. You’ll see a country inn on the right. Go through the next two lights, then hang a left, go up the hill. At the third stop sign, make a right. Two houses in from the end of the block, there’s a big white house with a white fence and a bunch of pumpkins and flowers and shit on the front porch. Park on the street and come to the front door. Don’t block the driveway. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Irwin hung up on him.
The minivan nosed out into the travel lane and joined the flow of cars crossing the bridge. There was a break in the traffic, so Le
o followed her. Morgan couldn’t make it; he was left behind at the merge point.
Leo picked up his cell phone to call Pulaski and let him know about the change of location. He thought for a minute. If Irwin had changed the location because he was suspicious, Leo couldn’t risk spooking him by rolling in with backup. He read the text from Sasha and pulled up her number instead. Four rings, no answer.
Leo hung up on her recorded message and punched it.
Morgan probably wouldn’t work too hard to catch up with him. He knew where they were supposed to be headed, and Ohio River Boulevard was a straight shot. If he covered enough ground, he could easily lose the pair of inspectors.
Once he had Irwin in his sights, he’d call Pulaski. They could gripe at him all they wanted. They wouldn’t want to let their SDUM know they lost him, so it would stay between the three of them.
Irreparable Harm (A Legal Thriller) Page 57
