Yardley looked at DeSantos with a tournament-winning poker face. “Fuck you. And you too, Agent Vail.” He turned to Sebastian. “We’re done here.”
Yardley walked to the door and flung it open. “This is a DEA investigation, Mr. DeSantos. Interfere, and I don’t care what juice you can pour. I’ll make sure it goes sour. So if it’s a pissing contest you want, have at it.”
DeSantos returned his poker face, then he and Vail started for the door—but not before Vail glanced back over her shoulder at Sebastian. He was biting his lower lip and picking at the Powerade label.
Vail had a sharp rebuke for him on the tip of her tongue, but held it. As DeSantos had implied, Sebastian abandoned Robby out of fear for his own life. But it was her fault, not his, that Robby’s life was in danger in the first place. And now it was her responsibility to find him.
Before it was too late.
53
They got into the Corvette and DeSantos gunned the engine and peeled out of the parking lot. “You’re doing your best to make my life difficult, you know that, Karen?”
Vail released her grip on the dashboard. “What?”
“I played our hand and I had nothing.”
“What about ‘I’ll call the director’?”
DeSantos brought the Vette to a screeching halt. “Karen.” He licked his lips, looked off into the distance as he gathered his thoughts. “I can’t call the FBI director every time I can’t get what I want. I don’t even work for him—he’s a . . . let’s just say I’ve got a special relationship with him. Bottom line, I bluffed. Yardley called it. That’s it.”
Vail covered her eyes with a hand. Great. “What about working your resources?”
“My resources, my assets and CIs and everything else I use for terrorism-related intel, is valuable shit. I can’t use it for stuff like this. One life . . . I don’t want this to come out the wrong way. But I deal with threats that involve dignitaries or U.S. congressmen, thousands—sometimes millions—of civilians. I can’t burn though valuable assets for this. I just can’t.”
“Wait a minute. Sebastian said something . . . ” She thought a moment, then said, “He may’ve been trying to tell us something.”
“Yeah. He and Yardley told us to go fuck ourselves.”
“No, no. He said he could call up his CI.”
DeSantos looked at Vail. “His phone records. If we can look through the calls he’s made in the past, what, three months—we may have his CI.”
“We’ll never get access to his records.”
“Legally,” DeSantos said. “We’ll never get his records legally. I’ve got other ways.”
“Ways that won’t burn your assets?”
“Exactly.” He shoved the gearshift into drive and stepped on the accelerator. Vail flew back in her seat. Only this time she didn’t mind. As far as she was concerned, the faster, the better.
54
At the Pentagon security booth, DeSantos spoke with the guard while Vail waited in the car. The telephone was lifted, words were exchanged, and a moment later DeSantos was climbing back into the Corvette.
“Give me your driver’s license.”
Vail handed it over, and DeSantos delivered it to the guard. Moments later, they were admitted into the parking lot. And moments after that, Vail was following DeSantos into the lower reaches of the Pentagon.
“No one can know what you see or hear. Are we cool?”
Vail nodded. “Yeah. Yeah.” Her head rotated in all directions. “Where are we?”
“The bowels, where I work. No sarcastic comments, please.”
He stopped at a door, placed his hand on a glass panel, and waited while a yellow light scanned his palm and a beam struck his retina. A computer voice said, “Scanning complete,” the electronic click of a lock released, and DeSantos pushed through the door.
“What’s OPSIG?” Vail asked. She thumbed a fist over her shoulder. “Sign on the door.”
“Operations Support Intelligence Group. We’re a highly covert team. And that’s all I can tell you.”
“That’s all I think I want to know,” she said.
Inside, an entire wall was subsumed by oversize LCD monitors, which displayed satellite imagery and blinking locator beacons. A worn conference table sat off to the side. An air-conditioned breeze whisked by Vail’s ears, neutralizing the intense heat radiating from the wall of screens that buzzed her face as she passed them en route to a chair.
DeSantos sat down on one of the navy seats, placed his hands on a laptop PC in front of him, and stroked the keyboard. He leaned forward and a light from an external device scanned his retina.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m logged in. Now, let’s see what I can do.” He reached over to a button on the table and pressed it. “Hey, man, can you come in here a sec?”
Vail moved to a seat beside DeSantos. “Who’s that?”
“Let’s call him Benny. My personal tech guru. I don’t have a clue what I’m doing half the time. I’m TC.” He glanced at her, must’ve seen her mind unsuccessfully processing that acronym, then said, “TC. Technologically challenged. My former partner could troll servers and penetrate secure databases like a true hacker. But me? I do Windows. That’s about it.” He struck a key. “When it involves delicate hacking, I need someone who knows how to hide our tracks.”
In walked Benny, a bear of a man with fingers so thick they reminded Vail of bratwurst. She wondered how he was going to navigate the keyboard.
“Whazzup, boss?”
“Have a seat,” DeSantos said. “We’re going fishing.”
BENNY, INDEED, HAD DIFFICULTY manipulating the computer keys—and as a result had to go slow, regularly correcting his mistyped commands. Finally, twenty minutes later, DeSantos retrieved a sheaf of papers from the LaserJet.
“Those are Sebastian’s phone logs?” Vail asked.
He splayed them across the table in front of him. “Cell, home, and work.”
“Scary that you can do that.”
DeSantos chuckled. “This ain’t nothing, my dear. You should see what we’re capable of.”
“Something tells me that if I did, you’d have to kill me.”
Benny chuckled as DeSantos regarded the papers.
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” DeSantos said, “believe me.”
Based on what little she had seen thus far, Vail certainly did.
Prior to printing the document, DeSantos had Benny sort the data multiple ways. He filtered out calls that were made to known people in Sebastian’s life: his family members, girlfriend, known acquaintances, and of course, Robby. Established businesses and federal agency contacts were eliminated. And that left calls to individuals or businesses that were unidentified or suspect.
“We’ll go from here, which is a lot more manageable.” DeSantos turned to Benny. “Page three. Do a search and get me the names of all the owners of these phone numbers.”
Benny turned back to the laptop and began poking at the keys. After a moment, he leaned back in his chair, which bent precariously close to the ground. “We’ll have the results in a minute. So,” he said to Vail, “I haven’t seen you around here.”
“I’m with the behavioral analysis unit.”
Benny looked at DeSantos.
“She’s fine,” DeSantos said. “She hasn’t seen anything and even if she did, she can be trusted.”
Benny eyed her cautiously. His laptop beeped and he turned his attention back to the screen.
DeSantos rose and placed a hand on Benny’s thick shoulder. He pointed at the color-coded display. “Sort it here and here. Give me a printout. That’ll leave us with a manageable list.”