Stuart Woods 6 Stone Barrington Novels

by Stuart Woods

  “Just a moment. I’ll see if he is in the office. Who’s calling, please?”

  “Chief Holly Barker of the Orchid Beach, Florida, Police Department.”

  Half a minute later, Grant came on the line. “Holly?”

  “Yes, it’s me.”

  “Where are you? What’s that noise?”

  “I’m in an airplane between New York and Florida.”

  “There’s good news: We made our bust last night.”

  “I saw it on television this morning. Where’s Trini Rodriguez now?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Trini has been given immunity from prosecution for his cooperation, and he’s back in the Witness Protection Program.”

  Holly turned red. “Grant, you can’t give somebody immunity from multiple state murder charges.”

  “He has immunity from all federal charges.”

  “I have a warrant for his arrest on twelve counts of murder one, resulting from the bombing at the church.”

  “I understand that, but I can’t tell you where he is.”

  “So, by hiding him, you’re effectively giving him immunity from state charges?”

  “I wouldn’t put it that way, but you can characterize it as you wish.”

  “This really stinks, Grant.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, Holly. This operation was vital to national security, and we couldn’t have pulled it off without Trini’s help. Listen, I’m headed back to Miami later today. You want to get together this weekend?”

  “No, I don’t. Not this weekend or ever again.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I was hoping we could . . .”

  “I’m afraid that, from now on, you’re going to have to do that to yourself,” she said, and hung up. She turned to Stone. “You heard?”

  Stone nodded. “Not good.”

  “What am I going to do now?”

  “I’m thinking, I’m thinking.”

  35

  STONE AND HOLLY were already having a drink at Elaine’s when Lance arrived.

  He settled himself at their table and ordered a drink. “So, how was sunny Florida?”

  “Sunny,” Stone replied. “I don’t know how they stand it down there.”

  “Yes, it’s a hard life. Holly, are you keeping the criminal elements of Orchid Beach in check?”

  “Oh, that’s not hard. It’s mostly traffic and the occasional drug bust or burglary.”

  “Aren’t you bored?”

  “Funny you should mention that.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “I’ve told Stone I’m thinking about making a change. God knows, life is good down there, but it’s not very interesting.”

  “Perhaps I can be of help,” Lance said. “Let me work on that.”

  “Sure.”

  Stone spoke up. “Actually, you can be of help on something else, Lance.”

  Lance smiled. “Trini?”

  “Right,” Holly said.

  “I saw the news reports. When I heard that they’d taken Trini away in an FBI car I suspected they’d be hiding him. Is he back in the Witness Protection Program?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Have you spoken to anyone at the FBI?”

  “Yes, but I’m never speaking to him again.”

  “Holly, surely you know by now that the FBI is never going to stretch to help anybody in local law enforcement.”

  “I knew that, but it’s been brought home to me afresh.”

  “Perhaps your best move would be to humiliate the FBI into turning Trini over to you.”

  “Humiliate them? That sounds like fun.”

  “Of course, you’d be burning your bridges. They’d never return another phone call of yours.”

  “Just tell me how to humiliate them.”

  “I know a well-placed reporter at The New York Times. I’m sure he’d like a story about how the FBI is hiding a mass murderer, keeping him from being prosecuted. Would you like to meet the gentleman?”

  Holly grinned and opened her mouth to speak, but Stone threw up a hand.

  “Hang on,” he said.

  “What?” Holly asked.

  “This is a very big step.”

  “Well, yeah, I guess it is.”

  “I think you ought to give some thought to the consequences before you act on this. First of all, you’re going to enrage the FBI.”

  “I’d like that,” she said.

  “You might not. Suppose you need them on an important case. I mean, you still have to use their lab, their computer databases, their expertise. You might find all that suddenly unavailable to your department—not overtly, just in small ways. They might ‘misplace’ your lab samples, or your computer connection might suddenly go down.”

  “Stone has a point, Holly,” Lance said. “If you go to the Times, it would be like a declaration of war on the FBI, and they could make things uncomfortable for you.”

  “You still have to answer to your city council, don’t you?” Stone asked.

  “Well, yes.”

  “You wouldn’t want key members of the council to start getting phone calls from highly placed people at the FBI, complaining about you.”

  “I guess not. Maybe I should just resign. That would fix all the problems you’ve brought up.”

  “But then a whole new set of problems might arise,” Stone said. “God help you if you should ever get into some kind of trouble with the Feds.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. You might be caught up a tree, so to speak, and need the Bureau’s help, or at least their inattention.” He waited to see if the penny would drop about the tree. It didn’t.

  “What do you mean, ‘up a tree’?”

  “Just a figure of speech, but a pertinent one.”

  The penny dropped. “Oh,” she said.

  Stone turned to Lance. “Isn’t there something else you might be able to do to help Holly locate Trini—something that could be accomplished without tossing a grenade into the Bureau?”

  “I’d need more to go on than I have,” Lance said. “If I had Trini’s name in the Witness Protection Program, for instance.”

  Holly sat up straight. “Robert Marshall.”

  “What?”

  “That’s Trini’s name in the Program. I got it from . . . a source.”

  “And how long have you known this?”

  “Since not long after I came to New York.”

  Lance pulled out his cell phone and dialed a three-digit number. “Robert Marshall,” he said. “New listing.” He took out a notebook and wrote down something, then hung up. He ripped the page off the notebook and handed it to Holly. “Eighty-eighth Street,” he said. “Two blocks east of here.”

  “You’re kidding,” Holly said.

  “Nope.”

  “You’ve got a CIA thing that can give you that?”

  “No, I called New York City information.”

  “Four-one-one?”

  “Exactly.”

  Holly looked embarrassed. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “I don’t know, why didn’t you think of that?”

  Stone began laughing. “All this time and trouble, and all we had to do was call information!”

  “Well,” Holly said, standing up, “let’s go get him.”

  “Not until I’ve had dinner,” Lance said, picking up a menu. “There are preparations to be made.”

  They ordered dinner, then Lance got out his cell phone again. “Write this down,” he said when the phone was answered, and he read out the address. “I want a car and two men on the building now. Check the mailboxes for a Robert Marshall and figure out which apartment it is. Check the file on one Trini Rodriguez for a description. Call me back when you’ve got it nailed.” He closed the cell phone. “We don’t want to just go strolling in there, do we?”

  “I guess not,” Holly said.

  36

  A
S THE WAITER was taking away their dishes, Lance’s cell phone went off. “Yes?” He listened for a minute or so. “Right. Soon.” He hung up. “Your boy came home five minutes ago. So kind of him not to disturb our dinner.”

  Stone waved to a waiter for a check and signed it.

  “Is everybody armed?” Lance asked. “Or do I have to think of everything?”

  Stone and Holly nodded.

  “Do you have cuffs, Holly?”

  “Yep, two pair.”

  “Then shall we?” Lance pushed back from the table and led them outside to his car. “Take a left,” he said to the driver, “then a block and a half straight ahead. One of our cars is there.”

  The driver did as he was told, and they came to a stop beside another black car. Lance rolled down a window and waved at the darkened windows. A man got out and got into the front seat of Lance’s car.

  “Tell me,” Lance said.

  “Your man came home ten minutes ago. He matched the file photo, ponytail and all. He lives on the top floor front; you can see his lights.”

  Lance looked out the window. “Mmmm, yes. The fire escape is on the front of the building. I’ll want your partner at the bottom. Then there’s the roof to deal with.”

  “I’ve had a word with the super and a look inside. There’s a door and a stairway leading to the roof from the top floor.”

  “All right, you go up to the roof and wait for somebody to come running through that door, and for Christ’s sake don’t shoot one of us. My friends would prefer to take the man alive, but don’t put yourself in peril to make that happen. We’ll give you a three-minute head start, then we go in.” The man got out of the car and went into the building.

  “Here’s what I’d like to do,” Lance said. “The three of us go into the building and ascend the stairs to the top floor, front apartment. Holly, you knock on the door, then stand with your back to it, so he can see only the back of a woman’s head through the peephole. As soon as he cracks the door, Stone and I rush in, with you right behind. We’ll concentrate on Trini. It will be your job to keep anyone else who happens to be in the room from shooting Stone and me. That okay?”

  “It’s good for me,” Holly said.

  Stone nodded.

  The three of them got out of the car, approached the building, and let themselves through the front door, which had had the bolt taped open. Lance put a finger to his lips, then led the way quietly to the fourth floor. He ducked under the peephole and took up a position on the left side of the door, while Stone took the right side. Lance nodded at Holly.

  Holly rapped lightly on the door. No response. She rapped harder, then turned around.

  “Who’s there?” a muffled voice said from inside.

  “Escort service,” Holly replied, her back still to the door.

  They could hear the rattle of the chain being undone, and the door opened an inch. “We didn’t call for anybody,” he said.

  Simultaneously, Lance and Stone rushed the door, knocking the man off his feet. They ran into the room, guns at arm’s length, with Holly behind them.

  The man on the floor wasn’t Trini, and there were three other men in the room, two of them pointing guns at Lance, Stone, and Holly. Trini was there, but he had no gun.

  “Freeze, FBI!” one of the armed men shouted.

  “Police!” Holly yelled, showing her badge. “I have a warrant for Rodriguez! Let’s see some ID.”

  An agent reached for his ID without disturbing his aim. “Who are these two guys?”

  Stone showed them his Orchid Beach badge.

  “Fellow traveler,” Lance said. “Can we all stop pointing guns at each other?”

  The agents didn’t move, and now the one they had knocked down was on his feet with a gun, too.

  Holly got the warrant out of her purse and held it up for them to see. “This is a fugitive warrant from the State of Florida for Trini Rodriguez. I’m taking him back for trial on multiple murder charges.”

  “Okay, everybody relax,” the agent said. “Holster your weapons.”

  The FBI men did so, and Holly, Stone, and Lance complied.

  “All right, lady,” the agent said, “just hang on a minute. Can I see your ID again?”

  Holly handed him the wallet with her badge and ID.

  “Okay, Chief, I’ve got to make a phone call.” He picked up a phone on the coffee table and dialed a number. “Put me through to Harrison,” he said. He tapped his foot for a moment, then practically came to attention. “Mr. Harrison, this is Carson, at the Eighty-eighth Street apartment. I’ve got a lady cop here who’s shown me a fugitive warrant for our guest.”

  Holly turned her attention to Trini, who was staring at her as though he’d like to strangle her. “You’re all done, Trini,” she said. “You’re mine now.”

  Trini managed an evil smile. “We’ll see,” he said. “I’m going to kill you, after I’ve fucked you a few times, and I’m going to kill your daddy and your dog, too.”

  “I can’t wait for you to try,” Holly said.

  “Yes, sir,” the agent was saying. “I’ll convey that to her.” He hung up the phone and turned to Holly. “Your warrant is superceded by an existing federal warrant and national security considerations. I’ll have to ask you and your people to leave.”

  “What do you mean, a federal warrant? Let’s see it.”

  “It’s on file in our New York office. I can have it faxed to you tomorrow, if you’ll give me a number. In the meantime, my orders are to ask you to leave this apartment, and if you refuse, to arrest you for obstruction of justice.”

  “Now you listen to me,” Holly said.

  Stone spoke up. “Holly.”

  “What?”

  “We have to leave.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “We have to leave, or we’re going to end up in the federal detention center downtown.”

  “He’s right, Holly,” Lance said, taking her by the elbow and steering her toward the door.

  Stone took her other elbow and they got her into the hall. The door was closed firmly behind them, and they heard locks turning.

  “Thanks for the support, guys,” Holly said.

  “Stone is right, Holly. You’re in a bad position legally.”

  They had started down the stairs.

  “Holly,” Stone said, “if you want him, you’re going to have to go to a federal judge and get a court order vacating Trini’s Witness Protection status and giving your warrant precedence.”

  “How long will that take?” Holly asked as they were leaving the building.

  “The U.S. Attorney’s office will fight it. There’ll be a hearing—maybe more than one. Weeks, at least.”

  They got into the car.

  “Or,” Lance said, “you could just kill him.”

  Holly grinned. “You sure know how to make a girl feel better,” she said.

  37

  THE THREE OF them sat in Lance’s car, half a block from the building. They had been waiting for half an hour.

  “Why do we think they’re coming out soon?” Holly asked.

  “Because they’re not going to keep him in a place that’s no longer safe from you,” Lance replied. “They’ll get him out as soon as they can arrange another location.”

  Another half an hour passed, then a dark van turned into the block and stopped in front of the building. There was a radio antenna on top. A moment later, Trini and the four FBI agents came out of the building, two of them carrying suitcases.

  “You were right, Lance,” Stone said. “They’re moving him.”

  Lance spoke to his driver. “Follow the van, but stay well back.”

  The van pulled away, went around the block, and turned down Second Avenue. Traffic was fairly heavy. They followed it down Second Avenue to Sixty-sixth Street, where it turned right and drove west, continuing through Central Park.

  “Looks like they’re moving him to the West Side,” Stone said. “I wonder why they still ha
ve him in New York? Why didn’t they send him to Minneapolis or Seattle or someplace no one would think to look for him?”

  “Because somebody as exotic-looking as Trini would stand out like a sore thumb in a white-bread city,” Lance replied. “They’d send him to the Southwest. Except they haven’t, of course.”

  The van left the park and continued west to Eleventh Avenue, then turned downtown.

  “Maybe Chelsea?” Stone said.

  “Maybe not,” Lance replied. “Let’s wait and see.”

  As the van approached Forty-second Street it moved to the left lane.

  “They’re headed for the Holland Tunnel,” Stone said.

  The van turned left, then right and went into the tunnel.

  “Stay well back,” Lance reiterated.

  The van left the tunnel and got onto Route 3 West.

  “This is starting to seem familiar,” Stone said.

  “What do you mean?” Lance asked.

  “It’s the route I take to Teterboro Airport.”

  “Ahhh,” Lance said. “Maybe they’re really moving him.”

  The van turned north on Route 17.

  “Yep,” Stone said.

  A few miles along, the van turned right at the airport sign.

  “Okay, which FBO?” Lance asked.

  “The big ones are Atlantic, Millionaire, First, and Signature,” Stone said. “They’re all on the west side of the field.”

  “They’re turning into Millionaire,” Lance said.

  “Better stop here. They’ll check IDs at the gate. Driver, continue on to Atlantic Aviation.”

  “Why?” Lance asked.

  “Because I can get us onto the field there,” Stone said. He got out his NYPD badge and his Teterboro ID card, and in a moment they were being buzzed through the gate to the ramp. “Turn off your lights, turn right, and drive slowly south until you get to the Millionaire ramp.”

  They drove on for a hundred yards.

  “Stop,” Lance said, pointing. “Only one airplane ready for takeoff.” He dug a pair of small binoculars out of the glove compartment and trained them on the airplane. “Can’t see the registration number.”