Their orders arrived and Marquez studied the turkey sand-wich, thinking that what Ruter had on Han could fit with his idea. He watched Ruter pick up his BLT and hit it the way he’d seen a great white hit a seal off the Farallon Islands last winter.
“Tice,” Ruter said, as he swallowed.
“Who?”
“Lenny Tice. The Bragg police call him Lenny Lice. He’s a local lowlife, one of Stocker’s friends. Tice suspected Han was an under-cover drug agent. I interviewed him and he threw that on the table, so you’re in good company.” He chuckled. “He thought Han was one of your old gang, DEA.” Ruter took another bite, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, wiped his hand deftly on the napkin. “Told me he wasn’t up for the dogs, the bullhorns, the long-haired undercover guys with their riot guns. Tice pointed us toward the dope at Huega’s girlfriend’s house and we waited to see who else would show up. That’s when the DEA got brought in. You’re saying Han was undercover trying to penetrate this Kline organization. Well, what did Douglas say when you called him? Which I’m sure you did before calling me.”
“He wants to sit down.”
“I’ll call him, if you want. As soon as we get out to the park-ing lot.”
Marquez handed the waitress a credit card and ten minutes later they were sitting in Ruter’s sedan, Marquez listening as he looked out at the ocean. He heard Douglas ask, “Are you sitting there with Marquez?”
“Yes, but I’m asking you.” Ruter picked at his teeth with a yellow plastic cocktail stirrer while Douglas hesitated. The FBI no doubt had a plan for how to handle any questions like this. Douglas wouldn’t want to dig a hole for himself but he owed the investigating detective a straight answer.
“Marquez came to you with the idea, so put him on.”
Ruter handed the phone over. “He wants to talk to you.”
“What’s the game we’re playing here?” Douglas asked.
“I’m looking back at everyplace the SOU has been and who we had contact with and that has to do with Petersen.”
“We’ll talk and no bullshit, but not over a cell phone. That okay with you?”
“That’s fine, but when?” Marquez asked.
“Today. Now what are you doing with CATIC?”
“I got a list of boats from them yesterday.” CATIC was the California antiterrorism coordinating body set up after 9/11. All boats coming into California ports were supposed to go through a notification process and be boarded by a team before coming into port. Marquez had requested a record of all vessels sixty feet or longer docking in California in the last two months. From that he’d culled his list. “Nothing has changed since we last talked. If we find anything, we’ll call you first.”
Douglas relented. “He was one of the good guys, Marquez.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It hit us hard.”
“I’m sure it did.”
Marquez hung up and handed the phone back to Ruter, and told him Douglas had finally confirmed that Han had been an FBI agent. A half hour later he was at Van Damme State Park. There was a kayaking outfit in the parking lot getting their clients ready to paddle out to the sea caves. He looked at the expectant faces of the largely middle-aged group and wondered if he’d ever visit those caves again in his life. He didn’t turn into the parking lot but into the camping area on the other side of the road and found Alvarez and Roberts looking glum, sitting on Alvarez’s tailgate up near the end of the paved area, drinking Calistoga juices. Brad’s hair was wet and he wore a wetsuit peeled down to his waist.
“We checked the caves and didn’t find anything there, but up the coast we found a wetsuit, booties, a mask, and gloves. They were in the same area we checked yesterday with the FBI.” Alvarez reached around and leaned into the pickup bed and slid out a large plastic evidence bag. “Nothing says it’s theirs but you’ve got to figure. It’s a wetsuit and gear and maybe you’ll recognize it. Kind of an unusual color.”
Marquez opened the bag and pulled the suit out. It was pale gray, same color as the suit the Irishman had been wearing. There was at least a chance of pulling DNA off the suit, but whether the Irishman was in any database, or whether that would do them any good was another question.
“Nice work. I’ll drop this with the FBI this afternoon.”
“Where are we going to take it from here?”
“We’ll work the list on these boats, harbor to harbor. I’m going to divide the state up between us, but a lot can be done by phone first.”
He carried the dive gear over to his truck and brought copies of the list back. He distributed the list knowing he was the only one who held any real hope that it might matter.
38
The ocean was gray-green at the horizon, the sky white and smooth overhead when Marquez left the coast. He followed a camper in a long line of traffic, taking two hours to get back up the canyon, past Boonville, and on out to Highway 101. He had a hard time with the slow traffic and sweat started on his forehead. He lowered his window, thinking they’d blown the ransom handoff, botched their best chance. They were running out of time, if they weren’t already out. She couldn’t die. That couldn’t happen. He came around a slow line of cars and edged in front of the leading car. The young woman driving flipped him off as he accelerated away.
At 3:30 he crossed the Golden Gate and fifteen minutes later handed the evidence bag to Douglas, getting no answer of how quickly the Bureau could do anything with it. He listened to an agent recount to Douglas some vague new tip of a terrorist threat, some FBI-speak passing between them on how it was being handled. Always overwhelmed here, he thought. Making decisions based on priority and resource, and with Petersen they had nowhere to look, no current leads.
Marquez followed Douglas into his office and took a chair to read the files he was finally willing to share. Records of boats they’d searched. Their undercover operatives. A blown bust.
“It’s unlikely we’ve missed a boat,” Douglas said, as he handed over a marked list.
“It’s one we’ve already seen. It’ll be right under our noses.”
“Is it? We have forty agents out there looking for Kline. Tomor-row, we’ll have more. If you want to help us, focus on the divers and the things your team knows. Maybe someone will make a mistake there that leads us in, but you’re not set up to board boats. Leave that to us and I’ll let you know on this wetsuit as soon as I know.”
Marquez drove home under the pale orange light ahead of sunset. Inside, he turned on the news, checking to see if anything was running about Petersen, if they were still putting out the infor-mation, but an airliner had gone down on approach to Heathrow with over two hundred aboard, including the U.S. Secretary of the Interior. Already labeled a terrorist event, all news was focused on the crash. He looked at the row of houses the jet had plowed through, listened to what was known so far, and then heated soup Katherine had brought last night and called Billy Mauro at home.
Mauro’s voice was unnaturally bright. “I met with the FBI again today,” Mauro said. “They want me to only talk to them, then they’ll talk to you.”
“Yeah? Have you heard from Bailey?”
“Not from anyone. I have a number for the FBI for you to call.”
“Thanks, Billy, I already have it.”
After hanging up, Marquez drank the soup and took a couple of aspirin. He lay on the couch with a blanket, the TV on low, throwing blue light in the otherwise dark room. Holding the lists of boats he called Shauf and Roberts who were up in the Fort Bragg cold house. They’d worked the phones all day and he crossed off the boats they said were no goes. He phoned Alvarez, who’d driven north and was in a Crescent City diner. Alvarez would take the northernmost part of the coast, starting up in Coos Bay, Oregon, early tomorrow morning, and work his way down.
Katherine wouldn’t be coming up tonight, but he called them now, talked a while with Katherine about the note from Maria, the conversation last night. Then he heated more chicken soup and made some toast before moving equipment from the Nissan to the Explorer, figuring to switch vehicles tomorrow. Later, when he fell asleep it was on the couch, and near midnight his cell phone rang and he reached for it, afraid of the news it would bring. He looked at the screen expecting Douglas or Chief Keeler, then clicked off the TV and said hello.