Chapter 2

It was a sign that something big was going on when Solomon’s secretary waved Taylor through as soon as he walked into the outer office. While he wasn’t the kind of Washington bureaucrat to make visitors wait to show how powerful he was, Solomon was the Director of the FBI, which meant things were constantly coming up that had to be dealt with right away. Taylor couldn’t remember the last time he’d been able to go right in without waiting at least a few minutes.

Joe Solomon’s office was on the top corner of the Hoover building with windows stretching across two of the walls. Again, he broke the Washington mold by not lavishly decorating the office with expensive furniture and decorations. The soldier in Taylor approved of its functional use, with files and law books opened up on the desk where Solomon was busy scribbling down notes about something.

He and Taylor had their clashes over the years, and Taylor would never admit it if asked directly, but he grudgingly admitted that for a bureaucrat, Solomon was pretty good.

“That was fast,” Joe said, looking up from the note he was writing.

“I was over at Main Justice.”

“Something important?” Solomon asked, clearly trying to think what Taylor would have been working on that would have taken him over the main DOJ offices.

While Taylor was pretty sure Solomon had come to terms with Taylor working for the Bureau, and even found him useful, he knew the director was very hesitant about Taylor ever interacting with anyone else from the justice department, or any other part of the federal government.

Not that Taylor blamed him. He knew he didn’t fit into the Washington atmosphere, where everything was more about pulling in as much personal power as possible and image was everything. It was the exact sort of place that created people like Edward Packer, the weaselly, and now very much dead, ex-campaign strategist turned defense contractor, and Taylor would gladly be shunned by every one of them.

“No. I went with that kid I pulled out of Somalia for his final meeting about possible charges. I was moral support and didn’t say a thing.”

“I’d heard they were going to close the case,” Solomon said, pointing at one of the chairs across from his desk.

Again, Taylor wasn’t surprised by that. One of the reasons Taylor was willing to overlook Solomon being a desk jokey was because he was at least useful, in that he usually knew what was happening in Washington circles. It had come in handy more than once.

“What’s up?” Taylor asked, sitting down.

“We have a situation in New Jersey. Have you heard anything about the Torrance and Dominic Amato cases?”

“Vaguely. They’re the brothers in charge of some crime family, right? Their case is supposed to start soon?”

“‘Supposed to’ being the key phrase. The New Jersey office has been building a case against them for years, but it’s been tough. They both came up post-Gotti, and the mob busting in the nineties, so they were very careful never to have been on tape or anywhere near a crime. We finally caught a break six months ago when one of their top lieutenants flipped to keep his kid, who’d been trying to get into the family business over his old man’s wishes, from going to jail. He was able to connect enough dots and place the Amato brothers in enough rooms to get a grand jury to hand down indictments. Although we managed to keep Bartolini under wraps for months, two days ago he was shot while sitting in a hotel being watched over by two US Marshals. From what I’ve been told, Bartolini wasn’t exposed and the shot was one in a million.”

“So the case is screwed?”

“It’s hurt, but we’re not out yet. One of the first people Bartolini got for us was the Amatos’ money guy. A little weasel named Sam Finney. He’s not as good as Bartolini, since he can’t put the brothers in rooms where crimes were being discussed, but he knows enough about their finances that we should be able to get a conviction. The worry, of course, is that he’ll never make it into a courtroom.”

“You know I’m not the guy for this, right? I’m not a babysitter and I don’t know shit about personal protection.”

“First of all, I know that’s not true. Look what you did for the President before the election.”

“That was different. I was hunting the guy tracking her. I’m assuming the local office already has people looking for the shooter, and you’re not the guy to pull them off the case and hand it over to me. Hell, I’ve asked you to do exactly that before, and you balked.”

“Normally, you’d be right, but this is different. There is no way the Amato family or their shooter should have been able to find Bartolini. The problem is, the Amatos have been able to get some pretty high-placed people in their pockets before. Judges, cops, even agents out of both the New Jersey and Manhattan offices. For them to get to Bartolini, someone had to talk. We moved him every three days, picking the spot at random shortly beforehand to keep it from being known, and no one outside of the room they were all staying in knew which room they were in. We didn’t switch shifts and we didn’t have anything come in and out of the room. Frankly, I can’t trust anyone up there right now, because I don’t know where the leak is. It could be with the locals, with our people, or hell, even with the Marshals. I need someone I know one-hundred percent I can trust. You might be a lot of things, but you’re not in anyone’s pocket.”

“And this case has already hit the papers, so if you drop the ball, you’re going to look bad on prime time news.”

“I know that’s what you think of all of us, Taylor, but it’s not about that. The Amatos are bad people. They have done some heinous shit over the last fifteen years that equals some of the worst cartels, as far as brutality goes, and the brothers are at the front of that. Until they came to power, the family was pretty minor and wasn’t really even on our radar. Since then, however, they have been absorbing or wiping out every other criminal element in their way as they’ve expanded, consolidating all of it in their hands. These guys are bad, and I want them stopped.”

“So you want me to just go and sit on this guy until after the trial?”

“No, but mostly because I know you and I know you don’t have the patience for that. Yes, I want you to make sure Finney makes it to trial, but I’m not going to stop you from going after the shooter if you want, as long as you can guarantee Finney’s safety. You’ll see it when you get down there, but I’m telling you that the shot on Bartolini was one in a million, so this guy is damn good, and I’d like to have him off the streets if at all possible.”

Unlike other agents, who actually worked for the Bureau and cared about their careers, Taylor had said no to assignments before when he felt like they weren’t in his area. He’d spent too much time as a square peg being hammered into a round hole while he was in the military, to let the FBI bully him into taking assignments which he was destined to fail, especially without Whitaker by his side. He had to hand it to Solomon. He’d cleverly expanded what would have just been a protection job into something Taylor would be interested in chasing, just to make sure Taylor didn’t try and buck the assignment.

“All right,” Taylor said, standing up and moving around behind the chair. “I’ll take care of it, I guess.”

“What did Joe want?” Whitaker asked the second Taylor walked through their front door.

She was standing on the other side of the door and he’d almost walked right into her, and would have if he hadn’t twisted aside at the last second, which was a feat unto itself, considering how far along she was. Whitaker, stubborn as ever, didn’t even budge.

“What?” Taylor asked.

He’d been so busy trying not to smash into her that he hadn’t actually heard what she said.

“I said, what did Joe want?”

“How did you...?” Taylor started to ask, and then stopped.

Of course, she’d have people on the top floor telling her everything that was going on. Whitaker was a control freak on her best days, and that had kicked into overdrive ever since she’d hit the third trimester. One of the things that made her Solomon’s right-hand woman had been her ability to navigate the FBI, maintaining good relationships with both the front-line troops and the bureaucrats at the top. She’d always had her finger on the pulse of the agency and made sure she stayed two steps ahead of her boss, and she’d made it clear she wasn’t going to let a little thing like having a baby slow her down.

She might have been ordered to stay out of the building and on bed rest, but she clearly hadn’t severed any of those connections. It was a testament to the paranoia Solomon must have felt that he both voluntarily called in Taylor and kept Whitaker from knowing what it was about. It also explained why she sounded so annoyed. That kind of blind spot must be driving her insane.

“He has a job for me.”

“For you? By yourself?” She asked, rightfully surprised.

It was one thing to utilize Taylor’s talents while he had Whitaker at his side, ostensibly keeping him in check. It was something else to have Taylor involved without that kind of control.

Taylor wasn’t surprised by her question and he agreed with her. Solomon offering him a solo assignment was unusual. Of course, his agreeing with her didn’t mean he wouldn’t use this as an opportunity to mess with her a little.

“I’m sorry, Princess, but he said this is a really sensitive assignment and I’m not supposed to talk to anyone about it.”

The expression on her face was enough to melt steel as she stepped right into him, her distended belly pushing him back into the wall as she stuck a finger in his face.

“Unless you want to wake up in the middle of the night missing some body parts, I suggest you quit screwing around and tell me what’s going on.”

Taylor laughed, shaking his head. She would have been a lot more intimidating if her soft belly hadn’t bumped into him every time she punctuated a word. Taking the hand with the pointed finger in his hand, Taylor leaned forward and kissed her head.

“I’m just messing with you. You know you’re cute when you’re annoyed.”

“One day...” she started to say.

“ ... I’m going to regret messing with you. Yes, I know. I regret it already.”

“Fine. Just as long as you know you’re playing with fire. So what the hell is going on? No one could tell me anything.”

“The witness in the case against the Amato brothers was killed a couple of days ago.”

“What?” Whitaker asked, stopping and looking up at him. “They just got the grand jury back on them and they had Bartolini completely locked down. How the hell did they get to him?”

Taylor wasn’t surprised she was up on the case. For something this big, she would of course have had some hand in working on it, even if she couldn’t be out in the field.

“That’s why Solomon asked me to go to New Jersey. He’s worried there might be a leak, either in the Bureau or with the Marshals, and wants someone to make sure their other witness makes it to trial.”

“Okay, I get that, but you aren’t really built for protective details.”

“True, but he also wants me to look for the hitter. Apparently, the guy made a nearly impossible shot and they haven’t been able to find a trace of him. If there is someone that good out there, it’ll be hard to keep Finney safe, no matter how trustworthy the people watching him are.”

“How, exactly, are you planning on watching Finney and tracking down the shooter simultaneously?”

“I haven’t worked that part out yet. I want to look at the crime scene first and see what we’re working with.”

“What does that have to do with protecting a witness?”

“Normally it wouldn’t, but I’ve looked at the files. Like you said, they went out of their way to keep him locked down and the hitter found them anyway. Even if I go completely off the grid, if they have someone on the inside, it’ll be hard to rely on secrecy to keep him safe. On top of that, the shot the hitter took was one in a million, according to Joe. If that’s true, just doing the same thing they did with Bartolini isn’t going to keep this guy safe until they get to trial. The best way to keep this guy safe is to smoke out whoever they have on the inside and track down the person who killed Bartolini.”

“So you’re going to have someone else watch Finney?”

“That was my thought. Find someone unconnected to law enforcement but with the training to get the job done and put them somewhere no one else knows about, even if the hitter finds out I’ve been assigned to protect Finney, they won’t be able to find him through me, and I’m not going to talk. If the hitter tries to follow me, they’ll only find me hunting them, which might distract them anyway.”

“You’re good at finding people, but you don’t know shit about working a crime scene, especially if you don’t have me to help you. Besides, if you’re tracking a hitman, I’d feel more comfortable if you had backup.”

“Who’d you have in mind?” Taylor asked, apprehensively.

He didn’t have anything specific against most of the agents at the FBI, but he found them, in general, to be too focused on the politics of being an agent to actually be good at their job. That is one of the things he appreciated about Whitaker. She was able, when needed, to do things that had to be done. Even with that, he’d found her sometimes too rigid in her thinking. They’d managed to make their partnership work, but Taylor doubted he could be effective with someone else, especially if they were one of the many politically connected agents who cared more about rising through the ranks and making a name for themselves instead of actually getting the job done.

“Don’t give me that look,” she said, correctly interpreting his facial expression. “I know how you feel about most of us and I wouldn’t saddle you with someone you couldn’t work with. I was thinking about Trevor Robles.”