By the time his wife-to-be joined the agency and came under his influence, Eddie was socking away nearly two hundred grand in cartel cash every year. But the Alejandros had bigger plans for him. They wanted Eddie to rise up the chain of command so they would have access to the best intelligence regarding threats to their empire. The cartel helped him along the way, sacrificing low-level soldiers and lieutenants in return for Eddie’s increasing stature and influence inside the DEA.
With his transfer to Washington, the agent had expected to earn a million dollars a year for his services to the Alejandros. In the confession, Eddie listed his bank accounts, the location of his security boxes, and the information required to access his cryptocurrency stashes. He also named ten other agents on the take in New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Texas. Special Agent Hanson, his superior in Washington, was not among them and was clearly shaken when Mahoney invited her inside to read the confession.
“I vetted Eddie myself,” Hanson said. “I told you, I thought he was a damned superhero.”
“Someone else knew he wasn’t,” I said. “Any ideas who that might be?” Before she could reply, Mahoney’s cell rang. He turned away and answered.
I said, “Mrs. Hernandez says there’s a vigilante named Maestro killing corrupt agents in the Southwest.”
Hanson nodded. “At least five we know of.”
Mahoney lowered his phone. “We’ve got a break. Whoever hacked the security system at the Congressional Country Club didn’t know about a battery-operated night-vision still-photo camera independent of the system and mounted overlooking the terrace. It caught one of the killers. They’re sending over the picture now.”
His phone dinged. He opened the attachment. The still showed a tall, rangy man in a white coverall crossing the terrace and headed toward the green where Hernandez’s body had been found. The man’s entire face was clearly visible.
“Facial-recognition software?” I asked.
“Quantico’s already running it,” Mahoney said. His phone dinged again. He looked at the screen in shock. “They’ve got him.”
“Already?” Sampson said.
“Immediate hit, hundred percent accuracy,” Mahoney said, scrolling down the new attachment. “Dale Cortland. Former U.S. Army Ranger. Private contractor in Afghanistan who…damn!”
“What?”
“Cortland was killed by a sniper outside Kandahar nearly five years ago.”
Chapter
52
Around four that afternoon, the DOJ approved the Hernandez family’s move into the federal witness protection program. I had to take Nana Mama to a doctor’s appointment and left the house as Sampson and Mahoney continued interviewing Rosella.
Special Agent Hanson was on the porch. I scanned the area, saw a few other agents I recognized from earlier in the day.
“No satellite news trucks,” I said.
“We’re keeping Eddie unidentified until Rosella and the kids are gone. Marshals will be here after dark.”
“And they’ll slip out and vanish.”
“As if they never existed,” Hanson said. “I’m sorry I got in your face this morning, Dr. Cross.”
“Emotions run high when someone you trust dies like that.”
“Makes me sick now, knowing he didn’t deserve that trust. My trust.”
“Until we meet again, Special Agent Hanson,” I said and offered my hand.
She shook it. “Under better circumstances, I hope.”
I left, walked down the street, and called an Uber. On the ride, I tried to wrap my mind around the clear photo of Dale Cortland outside the country club almost five years after a bullet from a .50-caliber gun had reportedly torn his head off in Afghanistan.
We’d heard rumors, of course, of deep, secret groups operating within the U.S. intelligence apparatus whose members were people like Cortland, soldiers whose deaths were staged so they could operate with impunity while the government denied their very existence. After all, the soldiers were dead. The official death certificates said so.
Was that what we were facing? A group of dead people with nothing to lose taking on the biggest drug cartel in the world?
I still had no answers to those questions when I got home and found Nana Mama dressed and waiting. We turned right around and got another Uber. On the ride, she said, “Ali’s tickled pink about something and can’t wait to tell you.”
Before I could reply, my cell phone rang. Caller ID said it was DC Metro Police.
“This is Alex Cross,” I said.