By the time he arrived at the café he was certain he hadn’t been followed. From the car he called Trey Bennett.
“Yeah,” said Trey, noting the caller ID.
“You got the ‘newbie’ with you?” asked Jake.
“He’s my little shadow. Where I go, he goes.”
“Well, isn’t that sweet. J. Edgar would be so proud of you,” Jake parried. Then, serious, he added, “Look, I’m already here. I don’t want to be paranoid but meet me inside. I’ll grab a booth in the back.”
“Okay.”
Jake entered through the side entrance of the café and was soon joined by Trey and Brian Carter.
The waitress approached before the agents settled and all three ordered iced tea. She left menus but Jake was anxious to get back over the hill and wanted only a drink.
“How’d it go?” asked Trey after the waitress left.
Jake handed him the memory chip from his recording device in a chain-of-custody envelope. He then pulled out the package Reid passed to him on the pier and handed it to Trey. “We’ll need to preserve all this and check it for prints. And since it’s a ‘lick-seal’ closure, you probably ought to see if it has his DNA on the seal. But meanwhile, I have to see the contents. It has all the information I need on the girl.”
“You want me to open it here?”
When Jake nodded, Trey, who was sitting next to the wall, surreptitiously pulled a pair of clear latex gloves from his tan leather attaché case.
With his hand under the table, Jake activated the spring-loaded switchblade he kept in his rear pocket, the sound drowned out by the chatter and clatter in the restaurant. “Here, you can use my letter opener,” he said, slipping the open knife across the table.
“Aren’t those illegal?” asked Brian.
“Remember, Brian, we’re here to enforce the law, not follow it,” said Jake.
Without changing expression, Trey said, “Brian, I’m your training agent. I order you not to listen to a word this man says. He has been permanently banned by OPR from advising agents on any matters pertaining to rules, regulations, or FBI protocols.”
If the letters F-B-I were uttered to instill fear in the criminal populace, O-P-R brought a similar trepidation to FBI agents. The instructors at the Academy pounded into new agents during the twenty-week program the role of the Office of Professional Responsibility. It was the Bureau’s answer to a police department’s internal affairs division, and Trey’s mentioning OPR put the probationary agent on alert. He hoped his training agent was joking but wasn’t certain.
“Did you count the money?” asked Trey, looking at a stack of hundreds wrapped by a rubber band.
“No, but it’s all there. He won’t take a chance on shorting me unless he just can’t count. He went to Harvard, so his math skills are probably above average.”
“These are all old bills,” said Trey.
“So?”
“Seems odd with the new hundreds out last year there wouldn’t be a few of them in the mix.”
“It all counts toward a conviction, so who cares,” said Jake.
“As soon as we’re done here I’ll get it processed and get you the information on the girl,” said Trey as he pulled the photo from the envelope.
“She looks young,” said Brian.
“Apparently she doesn’t look pregnant, at least not yet. Reid wants the problem disposed of before her father figures out his daughter is in the motherly way,” replied Jake.
He then explained the details of the meeting with Reid, the rookie taking notes. Brian would prepare the FD-302 report of the meeting, minimizing the paperwork for Jake. When Jake got to the Vegas part of the story, Trey balked.
“You didn’t agree to Las Vegas, did you?”
“Sure, why not?” said Jake with a playful grin.
“Jake, come on, you know why.”
Brian put down his pen. “What’s wrong with Vegas? Sounds like it’s a necessary trip for this operation.”
They both looked at Brian and simultaneously said, “Because Los Angeles won’t get credit.”
Jake’s grin was ear to ear.
“Why did you agree to go to Las Vegas?” asked Trey, almost pleading.
“Listen to the recording. It makes sense. There is no good reason why a contract killer wouldn’t want to do this in Las Vegas. You gotta listen to the way Reid set up the hit.”
“Jake, we just got an all-agents email to restrict travel due to budget cuts.” Again Trey was pleading, because he knew he had to sell his superiors on any trip outside the Los Angeles office’s area of responsibility.
“Who’s your AUSA?” asked Jake, referring to the assistant United States attorney who would be prosecuting the case. “He can still indict it here and make the travel element just another overt act in the commission of all these crimes.”
“Adriana Corbet.”
“You’re golden. She’s the best prosecutor in the section. She’ll work with us. Heck, if we agree to take her to Vegas, she’d convince the bean counters this is a necessary element of the offense.”
Trey shut his eyes and shook his head. “I should have just closed the case.”
Jake laughed. “We may not have to go to Vegas.”
Trey looked up, a glimmer of hope in his eyes.
“We’re going to have to approach the girl,” said Jake.
“Why?” asked the newly minted special agent.
Jake took another sip of his iced tea, then said, “It makes for a stronger case if we get the second payment after Reid thinks the girl is dead. Otherwise he can always say he changed his mind and was trying to locate the hit man to cancel the order.”
“And a jury will buy that?” asked Brian.
“You’d be surprised what a jury buys. Ever hear of O.J.? How about Casey Anthony? You’d be even more surprised by what a judge will buy from a Johnnie Cochran. We must have all the elements covered and we want them on tape,” said Jake.
“So what do you do?”
“We get the girl to cooperate. I have a friend who’s a Hollywood makeup artist. We squeeze a little fake blood on our victim, take pictures of the gore, color of course, and get one of our National Academy pals in the LVPD to plant a story and the images in the Las Vegas ‘blogosphere’ so we don’t get accused of misleading the press. Then I present everything to our Perry Mason make-believe and he hands me another bag full of cash.”
“Do you think the girl will cooperate?” asked Brian.
“When we play her the tapes, she’ll be more than willing.” Jake took the last sip of his iced tea, the ice falling to his lips as he tipped the glass upward.
“What about her father?” asked Brian.
“I think we need to keep him out of the equation. He might just want to inflict a little Pyongyang justice on our distinguished member of the bar.”
Trey’s cell phone rang and when he looked at the caller ID he said, “I have to get this.” Trey excused himself and went outside to take the call.
Jake turned to Brian. “So where are you living?”
“We’re renting a place in the West San Fernando Valley just off the Ventura Freeway,” said Brian.
“Good,” said Jake. “I spend a lot of time that direction. Let’s meet later this afternoon and trade Marine Corps war stories.”
Without showing a trace of emotion Brian said, “With all due respect, sir, Trey told me not to be alone with you until I’m off probation. He said you could ruin a bright future faster than a senatorial sex scandal.”
Jake’s face dropped and there was a brief uncomfortable silence as he searched for a comeback. Then he spied the hint of a smile on the probationary agent.
“You’re pretty good. I almost bought it. You may have a future in the UC program.”