Mahoney was not happy. “I want the confession.”
“What confession?”
“The one the groundskeeper saw,” Ned said. “The one in the envelope.”
“Oh,” Hanson said. “No, we are keeping that until the allegations can be looked into by our internal investigations team.”
“Are you looking for a federal injunction or something?”
“Bring it,” she said, smiling. “In the meantime, the confession stays with us. Don’t worry, it’s been properly bagged and entered into our evidence logs.”
“Can you at least identify the deceased?” I said.
“DEA Special Agent Eddie Hernandez,” she said. “He was a superstar in Albuquerque who transferred here to work intelligence three months ago.”
Sampson said, “Mr. Hernandez have a family?”
“Married. Two kids—a boy, ten, and a girl, seven.”
“I advise you to move them, put them under witness protection,” I said.
“Cartel won’t go after them,” Hanson said. “They’ve gotten the man they wanted.”
“I don’t think the cartel did this,” Mahoney said.
“I do,” she said. “This was payback for our taking down Marco Alejandro, pure and simple.”
“Maybe you’re trying to protect your department’s hero,” I said. “But his surviving family members are in danger.”
Hanson said nothing.
Sampson said, “Do you really want to be responsible for two dead kids and their dead mom?”
The DEA supervising special agent’s jaw tightened and then she stomped off, digging her cell phone from her pocket.
Chapter
48
Matthew Butler wore an earpiece and carried a microphone and a small video camera as he slipped among the satellite trucks and reporters already swarming the parking lot of the Congressional Country Club. In his pocket, he carried the ID of Harry Falk, a freelance radio reporter and internet blogger.
Butler’s camera was on. He panned it beyond the yellow police tape, saw DEA, FBI, and other investigators moving about the scene.
“Were you clean?” the familiar voice said in his ear.
“Spotless in and out,” Butler muttered into the mike.
“All cameras?”
“Everything on their network was neutralized.”
“Your team?”
“On their way back to the ranch. I’ll follow tomorrow. I’m guessing we can expect another retaliation?”
“And more civilian casualties. It’s how they operate in Mexico—they use the deaths of innocents to sow terror.”
Butler kept panning the camera around the scene. “We have another target?”
“Several domestically, but in anticipation of the cartel’s counterattack, I think it’s time we take it to their territory, let their families feel vulnerable, exposed. They’ll start making mistakes and—stop. Go back left with the camera.”
Butler did.
“Stop. Zoom in on the two big African-Americans talking to the short white guy in the suit.”
Butler pressed the zoom button and brought the three men into tight view. “Who are they?” Butler asked.
“Big guy on the left is Dr. Alex Cross, an FBI consultant regarded as one of the best investigators in the country. Guy in the suit is Special Agent Ned Mahoney of the FBI, Cross’s former partner and the Bureau’s go-to in a crisis. Big guy on the right is John Sampson, Cross’s best friend and a detective on DC’s homicide team. Also a very tough man. You are seeing Sampson six weeks after he was stabbed by a pro who was trying to kill him and whom he killed instead.”
“Impressive. Our pro?”
“The impostor’s.”
“Really?” Butler said. “What’s his beef with Sampson?”
“We’re dealing with a sick mind, so I can’t tell you. But Cross, Sampson, and Mahoney make a formidable team and we should not underestimate them in any way. Let’s start keeping tight tabs on all three of them.”
“Geo-location?”
“Their phones, anyway. I want to know where those three are at all times.”
Chapter
49
After several moments of strategizing, Mahoney called his FBI superiors to work out clear jurisdiction on the case. Sampson and I returned to our car and drove to Falls Church, Virginia, where the late DEA Agent Eddie Hernandez had lived with his wife, Rosella, and their children, ten-year-old Eddie Jr. and seven-year-old Naomi.
The house was in an older neighborhood of split-level ranches and short driveways with basketball hoops mounted above many of the garage doors. I pulled over across the street from the Hernandez residence, where a painting crew was at work scraping and priming the exterior in blistering heat.