The Lights of Tenth Street (66 page)

Ronnie felt disconnected from reality. She could only nod as people began streaming into the room.

“Yoo-hoo!” After the shortest of knocks, Jo poked her head into the house and looked around.

“I’m in the kitchen!” Sherry’s distant voice carried through the sweeping front hall. “Come on in!”

Sherry accepted a kiss on the cheek from Vance, and thanked Jo for the bouquet of flowers she’d brought.

“Go put them in that vase, would you?” She gestured with her elbow, about the only part of her that wasn’t covered with flour.

“What are you making? It smells great.” Jo looked over, curious, as she held the vase under the kitchen faucet.

“Oh—well, I had a little time since Doug’s still down at the FBI. So I figured I should make a fun New Year’s Eve cake.”

“Yum.” Vance tried to dip his finger in the icing bowl and got his hand slapped. “Hey!”

Jo laughed. “So Doug’s still down there. How’s it going, do you know?”

“He called me before they went into a big meeting of some kind—he sounded really odd. Said he had something amazing to tell me, but didn’t have time to elaborate before he had to go. He was turning off his cell phone for an hour or two, he said.”

“So we don’t know when he’ll be back?” Vance said.

“Nope. He did ask us to pray for them; said there were some weird things going on, and it seemed urgent. The FBI was taking the whole thing ultraseriously.”

Vance looked at the clock. “I wonder if he’ll even be back before midnight.”

Sherry gave her guests an apologetic smile. “Me, too. I’m sorry.”

“Please don’t worry about that,” Jo said. “We’re just glad we could be here.”

Vance gave an emphatic nod. “I’d want to be here anyway, just so you’re not alone.”

“Thanks.” Sherry hugged both friends in turn.

“And while we’re thinking of it,” Vance added, “let’s pray for a minute.”

Standing in the kitchen, amid the scattered pots and pans, flour and spices, the little group again approached the throne of grace.

Jordan’s Mercedes sped down the street, piercing the late-afternoon rays like a black bullet, his face calm and deliberate. The two men followed him in a different car, ready to be sent off or pressed into service at a moment’s notice.

Jordan’s manner was deadly calm, but inside a voice was rising, raging that the plan was coming apart, that something had to be done.

He screeched around a few corners, then pressed redial on his cell phone.

“I’m almost there. We’ll know in a minute.”

On the other end of the line, Jordan could hear Tyson shouting for someone in the background to hustle. He came back on the line. “Let me know what you find.
And I just got the final word, Chief. Unless—well, unless something goes wrong, we’re set for tonight. The networks’ schedules are final; the ad is locked in place for one minute after midnight; the code is ready for broadcast. Just six more hours.”

Jordan nodded as he watched two frantic pedestrians leap out of his way. “Six more hours. The supplications will carry us through. Nothing will go wrong. We’ll see to that.”

The supplications will carry us through?

What did that mean? What was up with this guy? Tyson rolled his eyes, glad Proxy couldn’t see him.

“Uh … sure, Chief. He’s got no reason to suspect you. Call me back once you know.”

Jordan clicked off his phone and pulled into the subdivision, into the appropriate driveway. He watched in his rearview mirror as the other car found an empty spot on the crowded street with a direct view to the front door.

He got out and motioned for the men to stay put for the moment, then walked calmly up the path and rang the doorbell.

A young boy answered the door.

“Hello, Brandon. Is your daddy home?”

Tyson had barely hung up the phone when it buzzed again. One of his lieutenants.

He listened in growing fury to the news. The replacement shift had arrived at the FBI, only to find the street in chaos, the sound of gunfire ringing through the early evening. The men had run down the sidewalk, getting as close to the action as they could, mingling with a growing crowd. Their colleagues’ car, recently riddled with bullets, was in the middle of the street, agents swarming everywhere. It looked like a man was down on the other side of the car, being worked over by paramedics. They couldn’t get a good view; didn’t know who it was.

Tyson clenched his eyes shut as if he could make the nightmare disappear.

“Could it have been one of our men?”

“Unclear. They thought our guys might have been inside the car, but couldn’t tell if they were alive or dead.”

“And no sign of the girls?”

“Not that they could see.”

“So we don’t know how our men were found out, or what they saw before all this happened?”

“No, sir.” The lieutenant had a note of satisfaction in his voice. “But I do have one piece of good news for you.”

“And what is that?”

“They got close enough to see a woman agent retrieve that device you were looking for—like a Palm Pilot—from the car and run it inside.”

“And why is that good news?”

“Because it was shattered, completely destroyed. Bullet must’ve hit it—or our guys broke it on purpose when the gig was up. The replacement team left the scene to call in the news when they saw that.”

“Tell them to get back there and keep watch.”

“Already done.”

Tyson hung up and his eyes narrowed as he considered the ramifications, a cold excitement again beginning to build in his core. The FBI might have the girls—probably had the girls—but they didn’t have the file. What damage could the whores really do spilling their guts for hours?

He started smiling, glee breaking out on his face for the first time in twenty-four hours. This was a gift from the gods! It was perfect! The girls would have quite a story to tell. The meticulous men and women of the FBI would take their statements and keep them there, talking, questioning them, for hours … and hours.

And they only needed six.

It was going to work!

Tyson pulled up his e-mail account and typed out an urgent prearranged message to the members of the S-Group. They would all be wrapping up their affairs, finalizing their financial arrangements, making ready to head to the airport … and would wing off into the darkness as the corrupted land exploded into chaos.

The room was filling up fast with people—hardened FBI agents sprouting notebooks, laptop computers, and tape recorders.

Their leader—the man who had pulled Ronnie from the street—identified himself as Special-Agent-In-Charge Paul Jackson. He swept his arm around the packed conference room, introducing the group merely as “my team,” then took a seat at the end of the long table.

Doug and Ronnie sat in comfortable chairs immediately to his right, with the others standing or sitting around the conference table in no apparent order. Agent-in-Charge Jackson pointed toward the empty chair beside Ronnie and said that, with luck, her friend Tiffany would be joining them soon.

He was explaining that the young lady was fine, she just had a slight concussion,
when the door opened behind them and Tiffany was ushered in, looking slightly sheepish.

She sat down beside Ronnie, who gave her a relieved hug.

“Now.” All eyes in the room turned to Agent Jackson as he stood. “As an update, we’ve heard from our colleagues on the police force that they took statements from all the club employees, but that our agent was not among them. She was apparently removed by force only moments before law enforcement officials arrived. There has been no further contact with her.” His deep voice was heavy with regret. “And then we received a string of phone calls from Mr. Turner here, trying to call in some information that we eventually figured out—once we’d put all the pieces together—was extremely relevant. So now we very much need to hear what our guests have to tell us. I’d like to ask Ronnie Hanover to start.”

The room suddenly became very quiet as Agent Jackson invited her to tell of the events of the last twenty-four hours, how she came to be in the possession of the Palm Pilot, and anything else of import she could think of.

Ronnie’s voice sounded small in her ears as she relayed the story, trying not to tear up as she told how Maris had drawn off the men, allowing Ronnie to escape.

Doug picked up the story, explaining how, with no immediate response from the FBI, he had taken the Palm Pilot into work to see if his boss could decrypt it. He described the young whiz kid breaking into the device and finding the encrypted file Maris had downloaded. Described how he’d given his boss, Jordan, a copy of the file on disk. Described, with slow puzzlement, the message Mary had left about Jordan burning the disk, and how someone had broken into his office and taken his computer.

After a long moment, Agent Jackson pulled something out of a box at his side and laid it on the table. Ronnie strained forward and saw Maris’s Palm Pilot, shattered beyond repair.

“Can … can you fix it?” Ronnie stammered.

“I’m afraid not.” Agent Jackson’s voice was grim. “Unless you can provide us with any new information, we may be back at square one. So we need to get into some more detailed questions.”

“Excuse me. Can I cut in?” Doug’s voice broke the depressed silence.

“Certainly.”

He got up and went over to his bloody coat, still lying across a chair by the door. “I disobeyed whichever FBI agent I spoke with, when he told me to leave my office immediately.”

A man across the room spoke up, surprised. “That was me.”

“Well, sorry. But I’m glad I didn’t do what you told me.” He fished in the pocket
of his coat and pulled out a disk. “I took an extra minute and made a copy of the encrypted file.”

The room exploded in astonishment as Doug brought the disk over to Agent Jackson, who began to laugh, shaking his head.

“You might make a believer out of me yet, Mr. Turner!” He tossed the disk down the table to one of the notebook-wielding agents. “Get someone working on that right away. If it’s a Bureau encryption, you’ll need to check the relevant ops file for the code.”

“Yes, sir.” The young man darted out the door, disk in hand.

Agent Jackson turned to another woman, sitting halfway down the table. “And get someone looking into the background of Mr. Turner’s boss—” he flashed a glance at Doug—“what’s his name?”

Doug gave the agent Jordan’s full name and what little he knew of his personal information. Once the woman had also hurried out the door, Doug turned back to Agent Jackson, his voice slow.

“But—how could Jordan be involved in this? He’s just a businessman. I don’t understand.”

“I don’t know, Mr. Turner, but it seems clear that he must be, somehow.” He raised an eyebrow as if curious. “That surprises you?”

Doug felt as if his world were turning upside down and rearranging itself while he watched, dumbfounded. “But … what you’re saying … is that there’s a connection between my boss and these girls sitting here.”

“Looks like it.”

S
pecial Agent-In-Charge Paul Jackson again stood at the front of the room, his voice commanding attention as he asked for silence. He pushed back a panel in the wall, revealing a large video screen, then lifted a remote control and pushed a few buttons.

The lights in the conference room dimmed just slightly, and an image appeared on the screen.

Ronnie and Tiffany both gasped. It was a picture of Maris—an official FBI picture, with profile information posted beside it.

Agent Jackson’s manner was hurried. He gestured to a senior-looking man at the table. “For our visitors, and for those in this room who aren’t already up to speed, I’d like to introduce Agent McKendrick from the New York Bureau office. He’ll take it from here.”

Agent McKendrick took Agent Jackson’s place at the front of the room. He looked directly at the three visitors, his face severe.

“For reasons I will explain shortly, I’m about to discuss some matters rarely shared outside the Bureau. This information must not be repeated outside of this room, to anyone. Is that clear?”

The three nodded, and he continued. “I believe that if you have this information, you can help us put the pieces of the puzzle together more quickly. As you may know, the New York office of the FBI has one of the most experienced teams in combating everything from organized crime to counterterrorism.

“The woman you know as Maris is actually Larissa Madrid, a fourteen-year veteran of the Bureau. For several years, the Bureau has been following the operations of a large, well-organized national crime ring that appeared to be based not out of the usual cities, such as New York or Chicago, but out of the Atlanta metropolitan area. Agent Madrid—I’ll call her Maris for your sake—moved to Atlanta to apply for a job at The Challenger, which was one of the establishments we had identified as playing a leading role in the crime ring.”

Another picture appeared on the screen. Marco, caught on camera in the staff hallway, unaware the photograph was being taken.

“Maris spent most of her time monitoring this man and his contacts with the
larger ring. Marco, the manager of the club, was believed to be one of the top operatives, having ascended in trust and power after his predecessor was bumped off.

“Maris was fairly new on the job when Marco’s predecessor blabbered to the club one night about a secret drug-running tunnel off the coast of Florida. She passed the information along to us, we conveyed it to the local authorities, and the tunnel was raided. Marco’s predecessor was bumped off shortly thereafter, and we learned a valuable lesson about the quick-trigger tactics of this particular crime ring. We also began to suspect that there was something else going on.”

He gestured to the screen as another photograph appeared. Another official FBI picture. The agent gave Ronnie and Tiffany a few moments to look at the picture, then asked. “Have you ever seen this person before?”

Ronnie shook her head, but Tiffany frowned. “It’s been a long time—”

“Yes, it would’ve been over a year.” The agent looked interested. “Go on.”