Chapter 3

Taylor hated dealing with DA’s and US Attorneys. If being lawyers wasn’t bad enough, these guys were also politicians, more worried about how they’d look in the papers than actually putting criminals behind bars.

As usual, even though everyone was using every chance they got to point out how important this case was, the guy left Taylor and Robles cooling their heels in reception for a good thirty minutes. They always apologized and blamed their busy schedule, but everyone knew it was just mindless head games these guys played with each other.

Finally, the office door opened and three guys in suits came filing out. It was obvious which one was the guy Taylor was there to see just by how the other two all but genuflected as they said their goodbyes. From their well-tailored suits, Taylor had to assume they were money guys, which meant they were probably discussing fundraising, which was the real thing politicians did for a living.

“Mr. Taylor,” he said as the guys finally left, reaching and grabbing Taylor’s hand to shake it. “Sorry to keep you waiting. You know how it goes around here. Always busy, busy. I’m US Attorney Darren Hill.”

“Sure,” Taylor said, not bothering to sound convinced by the explanation or impressed by the credentials. “This is special agent Robles. We just wanted to clear up a few things before we went to get custody of Finney.”

“Sure. Come on back,” he said, standing aside and gesturing towards his office. “I spoke with Joe Solomon a few hours ago, and I tried to assure him that we had the situation under control, but I guess you’d already missed him. I appreciate you coming all the way out here, but I’m not sure this is the kind of assignment for a man of your talents.”

He walked around them to sit behind the large desk with its nameplate announcing his position as a US attorney with the justice department, like anyone who’d gotten this far might be confused about who they were meeting.

“How so?” Taylor asked.

This wasn’t the first person who had problems with Taylor, his methods, or his seemingly permanent position outside the standard chains of command, but he liked for them to spell it out. Partly because these guys were rarely called on their bullshit, so they had to dance a little bit to actually find a way to say they thought he was an uncontrollable outsider who had no place protecting anyone and partly because they often managed to tie their own rope in the process.

To the guy’s credit, he didn’t stumble like some of his type did.

“I am, of course, familiar with some of your exploits. How could I not be after your heroic capture of Waleed Qasim or your rescue of President Caldwell on election night? You’ve caught some pretty big names and you’re clearly very good at it, but protecting a witness is a very different thing from chasing down criminals. While those were all very impressive feats, it’s also pretty well known the mayhem that has happened along the way. Now I’m sure it was all perfectly justified to get the job done, but Finney is our last link to the Amato family, and if he’s caught in the crossfire, these guys go free, and I will not stand for that. I’d suggest that, perhaps, there are other assignments better suited to your skills than this.”

‘There it is,’ Taylor thought to himself. He was being all kinds of respectful about it, but it never took these guys long to explain why they’d be happier if Taylor was anywhere but involved with their case.

“I think maybe...” Robles started to say until Taylor lifted his hand slightly in a ‘hold up’ signal, low enough that Robles could see it but Hill couldn’t.

“I get it, and I couldn’t agree more. I’m good at tracking people and I’m a terrible babysitter, but...”

Hill, hearing what he wanted to and not where Taylor was going with that sentence, slapped his hands lightly on the desk, interrupting Taylor, and said, “Excellent. If we can...”

Taylor kept going, raising his voice slightly in the way any sergeant in the US army learned to do on the first word, forcing Hill to shut up.

“But, this was cleared through Joe Solomon and the deputy AG, which means neither of us really gets a say in how this goes, doesn’t it?”

Hill’s mouth tightened in clear agitation, but he simply steepled his fingers and said, “I guess it does. So what do you need from me?”

“I want to know more about the case.”

“I assume you’ve read the files?” Hill said, all pretense of friendliness gone.

“I have, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. I’m trying to figure out how the Amato family got to Bartolini. Him being your primary witness and all, I was surprised with how easily they were able to get to him.”

When Taylor first started working with the Bureau, he seemed to make a habit out of antagonizing politicians and officials or hiding his real feelings about them. Over the years, Whitaker had convinced him there were easier ways of dealing with people like Hill, so he wasn’t just goading the man to prove a point. He’d dealt with enough of these guys that as soon as they found out they couldn’t bully Taylor into following their lead, they’d go out of their way to be useless.

Taylor had found that, if he wanted to get something useful out of them, the best thing he could do was make them angry. At least then, they’d be trying to prove a point. Sometimes it backfired and they’d try to stymie his investigation, but sometimes it got them going in the same direction, even if they hated him afterward.

“He was far from our only witness, which I think you are well aware of. We discussed the idea of a larger task force to protect Bartolini, but anything we would have been able to put together would have been insufficient. The Amatos are bad and it’s my job to see they’re shut down in New Jersey, but they are far from the worst group in New England, let alone the rest of the country. That means we only have so much access to resources to prosecute this case, and that doesn’t mean a huge task force to protect one witness. I’ll also remind you that it was the FBI that suggested a smaller team, relying on anonymity rather than numbers to keep Bartolini safe. I relied on your people to make sure Bartolini made it to trial. So maybe take a step back and realize why I might be hesitant to listen to you guys again.”

“You still have the same problem. You have one more witness and everyone, including the Amatos, knows about him, right?” Taylor asked. “If you had your choice, how would you plan on keeping him safe?”

“I don’t know, since it’s not really my choice. My job is to prosecute the cases you guys build. It’s up to you to keep him safe. If you have a way of doing that, I’m all ears.”

“It looks like we’re on the same page,” Robles said, stepping in to play peacemaker as Hill and Taylor stared each other down across the oversized desk. “Now that we all agree that we’re on the hook for keeping Finney safe and we all want to see him make it to trial, instead of blaming each other for Bartolini, let’s figure out how to do our jobs.”

“So what about the case did you need to know.”

“I’m trying to figure out how they got to Bartolini, so we don’t make the same mistake. We looked over the setup at the motel, and it was pretty good, but nothing is one-hundred percent. This whole plan relied on no one knowing where Bartolini was.”

“You’re wondering where the leak is?”

“Yes,” Taylor said.

Hill took in a deep breath, letting out a long sigh and for a second Taylor thought he might explode again.

Instead, he said, “I’ve been trying to figure that out too. I think it’s obvious to all of us that somehow the location of the motel was leaked. I’ve read the follow-up investigation and no one was seen snooping around or talking to desk clerks to find out what room they were in. They knew exactly what room to hit, which means yeah, we have a leak.”

“But you don’t know where?” Robles asked.

“No. I’m telling you, we have torn through everyone who had even the smallest amount of access to this case, and they all come back clean. Everyone comes back squeaky clean, which means we’re missing something.”

“Worse, it means you’re not going to find the leak,” Taylor said.

Hill just nodded. Taylor could see how frustrated he was, and sympathized with him, to a degree. This kind of thing could make them feel helpless, especially since it was possible there wasn’t a leak at all, and the shooter managed to track them down another way. Taylor could understand them not wanting to confront that scenario, since it gave them no one to put the blame on, but it also meant they weren’t taking precautions to stop indirect ways of tracking a person.

“Is there somewhere I can make some calls?”

Taylor left Robles with Hill and went into the small office next door, where Hill indicated there was a phone.

“Chenier,” a monotone, no-nonsense voice said when the man on the other end of the line picked up.

Jim Chenier was a captain in the Army assigned to the criminal investigation division. Taylor had worked with him to uncover a serial killer operating out of a small base in west Texas almost a year ago. The two weren’t friendly, but Chenier had come across as a stand-up guy and it would take quite the leap for someone to connect him to Taylor.