“Who would you be hearing this from?” Vail asked. She glanced at DeSantos and noticed his tight jaw. But she couldn’t help herself.
Sammy did not react. Calmly, he said, “We have more assets in place than just the two you knew about. They send us texts using clean phones, but contacting them is risky and not always possible. We prefer to keep it a one-way street.”
DeSantos faced Vail, as if he was talking to her. “And?”
“They’re gearing up for some big changes. Some new shit with real bad consequences.”
“How so?”
Sammy looked out at the fountains a moment, then tucked his chin.
Vail realized he was probably hiding his face in case anyone was attempting to read his lips. Good tradecraft—but paranoid as shit.
“You know about the wine bottles? The labels?”
“The black tar heroin,” DeSantos said. “The LSD.”
“There’s more to it. They’re testing something new, something that could turn the drug trade on end. A potent drug with a revolutionary delivery system. No needles. Using the wine bottle labels.”
“What drug?”
“BetaSomnol. Ever hear of it?”
Vail couldn’t help but turn toward Sammy. “Fuck yes. I was shot up—”
“Honey,” DeSantos said with a forced chuckle. “Please watch your language.” He grinned at her, then said in a whisper, “Keep your eyes in my direction and lower your goddamn voice.”
“I was injected with it,” Vail said. “It put me to sleep. Why would ‘our guy’ think there’s anything special about that?”
“Injecting the drug causes different effects,” Sammy said. “But put the drug on a film—or a label—and then put the film on your tongue . . . and you’ve got a novel delivery system. Oral and transdermal. It releases part of its total drug content orally—which produces the nap you experienced with the injection. But the rest of the drug is transdermally released to produce the lasting high upon waking a few minutes later.”
“Who’d want to walk around with this film in your mouth?” DeSantos asked.
Sammy shook his head, then examined something he was holding in his hand. A digital camera. He thumbed through the pictures on the display while he talked. “Transdermal delivery deposits the drug in the dermis, the tongue’s top layers under the patch. When the patch is removed, the dermis continues to release the drug into the person’s system. So the euphoria continues even though the film’s been removed. It’s a very intense, long-lasting high. The gift that keeps giving.”
Vail looked out at the milling tourists as they snapped photos. “This is new?”
“Totally. BetaSomnol is used in hospitals as a powerful, fast-acting sedative—”
“I know how it’s used.”
“Then you know it’s a growing problem. Abuse by physicians on long shifts. They take the drug and it induces a rapid nap. After they wake, they have an intense, momentary high—which doesn’t last because they’re not using the transdermal film—but it does make it seem as if they’d slept for hours, even though it’s only been about twenty minutes. Helps on long shifts.”
“And that’s legal?” Vail asked.
“Not exactly. But it’s becoming an abuse problem among hospital docs and nurses. Guevara found out about this. There was a doc at the hospital in Napa who nearly killed himself when he screwed up and misadministered the BetaSomnol to himself. Guevara heard about it, had an idea, took it to Cortez, and their chemist started working on it. Five months later, he came up with this transdermal film, modeled after a patented process that’s currently used in the manufacture of Duragesic. Transdermal Fentanyl.”
“And there’s a market for this?” DeSantos said.
“Guevara wanted to bring something big to Cortez. Be a big feather in his cap. He’d already looked into using Propofol, the shit that killed Michael Jackson. But it was too damn dangerous. Too easy for some junkie to OD—that’d bring serious addict heat.”
“Addict heat?” Vail asked.
“When addicts start dying, the police take notice and come down hard. The cops know they’ve got a big problem, so it gets more attention. I’m not saying we look the other way when there aren’t as many junkies dying—but it’d make the papers. And once that happened, word would get out the stuff’s no good. Bad for business. So the cartels gotta keep their customers happy. And alive. Dead customers tend to stop buying stuff.”
DeSantos took Vail’s hand in his. He obviously wanted this to look believable. It didn’t help that Vail turned and gave him a hard stare.
“Cortez wasn’t totally convinced it was safe. Apparently skin permeability varies person to person and he didn’t want to risk it. But a couple days ago, his chemists came up with a fix. They refined the product by processing the film with some chemicals. It worked. Word is that it produces a very intense, long-lived high—that’s completely safe. And the return on investment’s very high. The label can be sliced into multiple smaller sections, multiplying the doses per smuggled wine bottle. His goal is to create a whole new craze in the marketplace. And Cortez is the only one who’s got it. He’s the sole supplier. He’ll clean up.”
“Great,” Vail said. “Not good enough we’ve got tens of millions of drug abusers in this country. Now he’s gonna make it quick, easy, and safe to walk around stoned. Great goddamn world we live in.”
“It’s a credible threat,” Sammy said. “We’re taking it very seriously. Only solution is to take down his organization. Or cut off its head and weaken it.”
DeSantos let go of Vail’s hand and put his arm around her. “I think it’s time we got back, honey.”
Vail rolled her eyes. “Yes, dear. Let’s get back.”
DeSantos said, “Anything comes up on our guy, let me know.” He turned to glance at Sammy—but the man was thirty feet away, heading toward the steps at the far end of the plaza.
59
Vail called Gifford to update him on what they had learned from Sammy—and Lenka informed her he had just left the office. She could reach him on his cell, as he was headed into Georgetown for a late dinner.
Gifford agreed to meet them at the restaurant provided they got there quickly and didn’t stay long.
Georgetown Seafood Grill was located below street level in a marble-faced office building. DeSantos pulled his car to the curb, again with no regard for the district’s parking enforcement laws and the five—five—stacked No Parking signs that towered in front of the restaurant’s entrance.
“They have valet parking,” Vail said, pointing to the A-frame sign at the curb.
“Won’t be here that long. We’re fine.”
They walked past a handwritten “50 cent Clams & Oysters” sign locked inside a display case that featured the restaurant’s menu, then descended the stone steps and pushed through the glass doors.
Vail moved past the bar and into the maritime-themed dining area. Clinking glasses and silver-on-ceramic clatter mixed with the rumble of idle chatter among the patrons. Polished cherrywood booths were separated by frosted dividers, neatly finished by crisscrossed wires that wove through riveted holes in the glass. Oars hung overhead, alongside inverted canoes and three sizable swordfish.
Gifford sat at a booth along the side wall, alone, a mixed drink in his hand and a menu propped up to his left. Vail slid in beside him. DeSantos stood at the end of the table, not wanting to invade the ASAC’s space without asking permission.
Gifford motioned him in. “My friend should be here soon. Make it fast.”
“We need to get the Bureau back in the game,” Vail said.
Gifford set his drink down beside a metal porthole carved into the wall just above the table’s surface. He removed his reading glasses and said, “No.”