Endangered Species: PART 1 (5 page)

Christie looked puzzled. “So, what are you
saying?”

“
Do I need to draw you a
picture?” Burkhardt said with a smile. “She’s pretty hot, recently
divorced and looking to get back in the game. She wants to meet
you. Whaddya say?”

“
Who is she?”

“
Name’s Camila
Ramirez.”

“
Ramirez? She’s Hispanic?”
Christie realized how that sounded and said, “Not that I have a
problem with that.”

“
You’re out of touch, dude.
The term is ‘Latina’,” Burkhardt said. “She’s got a pretty face and
a hellova body.” He paused briefly then said, “Pardon the pun ol’
buddy, but opportunity’s banging on your door.”

The bartender arrived and set their drinks
in front of the two men. He didn’t look at either one of them and
left quickly.

“
I don’t know,” Christie
said. “I’ll think about it.”

Burkhardt smiled. “Don’t wait too long. The
department’s full of skirt chasers and they’re starting to
circle.”

* * *

The FBI field office in
Albuquerque was located at
4200 Luecking
Park Avenue NE. It was a large two and three story building with a
brick façade, sandwiched between I-25 and the North Diversion
Channel in Luecking Park Complex. The area was a mix of office,
industrial, and residential uses. There were modest residential
communities to the east and mixed-use commercial and industrial
areas to the south of the complex. The FBI and other governmental
agencies learned a costly lesson in Oklahoma City on April 19,
1995. The Bureau’s field offices now were fenced, gated, well
illuminated at night and guarded 24 hours a day. The Albuquerque
office was no exception. A deep trench recently had been dug around
the building to prevent a modern day Timothy McVeigh from crashing
an explosives laden vehicle through the fence.

The moat amused Christie. The concept had
been sold to the local planning commission as a water management
structure. He chuckled at the thought. New Mexico was bone dry, as
his bleeding nasal passages and itchy spots attested.

He thought about his
conversation with Tom Burkhardt. He instinctively liked Tom. Maybe
it was just professional respect, but it seemed like more. Tom was
more than just competent and intelligent. He picked up on things
quickly and seemed genuinely interested in the well being of his
fellow law enforcement officers. He felt comfortable with him and
sensed he may have found a friend. This thing with the Ramirez
woman, however, made him a little uncomfortable. He didn’t feel he
was ready to start dating, even though he knew Deborah had begun
seeing other men.
It’s been such a long
time since I’ve been with any woman other than
Deborah
, he thought. Would he know what to
say, what to do? Worse yet, what if it came down to intimacy and he
was unable to perform? He feared his current physical and emotional
conditions might be an impediment.
That’s
the kind of thing
, he thought, and gritted
his teeth,
that would spread like wildfire
through the law enforcement community
. He’d
have to think of some way to graciously avoid involvement. Besides,
he was working on a personal project that was more important to him
than anything else in his life at this time.

It was after nine o’clock in the evening and
Christie had mixed feelings about returning to the office. If
Wojakowski was still here, her presence would prevent him from
doing what he was there to do. On the other hand, it might impress
her favorably if it appeared he was putting in long hours. He
hadn’t seen her car in the parking lot, but he walked past her
office just to be certain. The door was closed and no light seeped
from beneath it. He breathed a sigh of relief.

Entering his own office,
Christie closed and locked the door behind him. He sat at his desk
and fired up his computer. Mumbling under his breath, he said, “Now
comes the tricky part.” He browsed to a chat room established
by
INTERPOL Washington, the United States
National Central Bureau. It served as the designated representative
to INTERPOL on behalf of the Attorney General and was the official
U.S. point of contact in INTERPOL's worldwide, police-to-police
communications and criminal intelligence network.

Christie had a friend, a
former FBI colleague, who had transferred to INTERPOL Washington
and now worked in its
State and Local
Liaison Division. The division’s major purpose was to support the
exchange of information between foreign law enforcement authorities
and state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies in the United
States. Christie needed INTERPOL’s assistance in gathering certain
information, and this was the best way he could think of to get it.
He had told his friend in INTERPOL Washington that the
OCDETF in Albuquerque was investigating a major
drug trafficker who may be operating from Ireland. The friend was
in a position to request information and assistance from
INTERPOL National Central Bureau for Ireland in
the Dublin headquarters of
An Garda
Síochána
.

Whelan and the other five
surviving members of the Sleeping Dogs officially had been
pronounced dead by the Bureau, victims of an explosion aboard a
commercial fishing boat near the Pacific Island of Guam. But
Christie never bought into that story. It was too cute, too
perfect. The Bureau got to blame the mess surrounding Laski’s death
and the attempt on POTUS’s life on the men, and neatly wrap up the
investigation. Score another one for the Bureau.

But Christie had a
different theory. These same men supposedly had been killed twenty
years earlier in an airplane crash off Puerto Rico. But it turned
out they weren’t dead. They had faked their deaths and gone to
ground for two decades. They likely would still be there if it
hadn’t been for that idiot senator, Howard Morris. His efforts to
dig up evidence that would humiliate the country and further endear
him to his far left constituents had backfired. Instead of simply
proving that the United States had at one time maintained a special
black ops force that
surreptitiously
brought havoc and
death to its enemies, the damn fool’s actions had loosed the
Sleeping Dogs, awakened them so to speak.

The irony of the analogy
amused Christie, but the sound came out more like a snort than a
laugh. The cleverest, most dangerous men on earth had faked their
deaths once before. If the Bureau wanted—no, needed—a fairy tale
ending, it could have it. But Christie knew better. Brendan Whelan
was alive. Somewhere. But where? It was a big planet and the man
could be hiding anywhere on it. Christie had worried with that
issue for months, and then it had come to him. He knew from
Whelan’s old military file that he had been born in Ireland.
Christie wasn’t sure why, but he sensed that was the place to
search. His next problem was trying to figure out how to gather
relevant information without quitting his job and traveling to
Ireland. Then he remembered his friend at
INTERPOL Washington. He invented the story about the
OCDETF investigating a drug lord with Irish
ties.

While there were no current
photographs of Whelan, Christie had access to the likeness a Bureau
sketch artist had drawn during the Harold Case investigation. It
was based on an old photograph from Whelan’s military record.
Christie knew it was a good likeness because he unknowingly had sat
next to Whelan on a cross-country flight. For quite a while he had
thought Whelan purposely had done it to mock him, but finally
accepted that it was simply a weird coincidence. He had contacted
his friend at INTERPOL Washington, spun his OCDETF story, and asked
him to liaison with
INTERPOL National
Central Bureau for Ireland. He had provided the sketch of
Whelan.

Several weeks had passed,
tonight an email had arrived while he was at the bar with
Burkhardt. His friend in Washington had something for him. Christie
wasn’t worried about using the Bureau’s facilities for these
purposes. He believed the demands of his FBI duties had contributed
significantly to the failure of his marriage. In a real sense, the
Bureau owed him. Big Time. Besides, these activities would appear
to be a normal part of his responsibilities as cochair of
OCDETF.
Neither was he
concerned that Wojakowski would catch him in this deceptive
behavior. Not that she wouldn’t love to, he thought. But he knew
that she didn’t have the time, or cleverness for that matter, to
check with anyone at
OCDETF to see if it
actually was investigating a drug trafficker with Irish
connections. He was comfortable that the plausibility of the story
was cover enough.

He keyed in the code and entered the ultra
secure chat room. It had been designed and was maintained by a
group of techno-wizards the Bureau and INTERPOL had lured away from
NSA. A member of the INTERPOL Washington staff could reserve it. A
code would then be randomly generated which could be distributed by
the member to whoever was to participate. No one else could access
the room during that period, and the context of the conversation
automatically was destroyed when the reserving member exited the
room.

His friend was waiting for him, and welcomed
him to the chat room. “Hi, Mitch, good to ‘see’ you.”

“
Thanks, you too.” Christie
got right to the point. “What do you have for me?”

“
This turned out to be a
bit more challenging than I might have imagined.”

“
How so?”

“
An Garda
Síochána
, the Irish National Police,
seemed fully cooperative at first. Guess they weren’t too happy
that some drug-dealing bastard might be operating from their
shores. Then, for no apparent reason, they backed off and said
there were too many matters on their plate and they didn’t have the
manpower to get involved in this.”

“
You think that was
legit?”

“
Apparently not. This morning I got a call from a guy with the
Irish cops. Wouldn’t give me his name. Said the guy you’re looking
for had connections with
An Garda
Síochána
.”

“
No shit.” Christie was
getting a sick feeling in his stomach, and it wasn’t the usual
savage case of heartburn.

“
Not to worry. The guy
apparently wanted to build some brownie points with us. Said your
guy lives on the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry. Couldn’t be more
specific. Hope that helps.”

Christie’s fingers were
still for a moment then he typed, “Yes. Very. More than I had
before. Thanks.”

“
A pleasure to help a
friend and fellow law enforcement officer. Anything else I can do
for you?”

“
Not that I can think of at
the moment. Just clarify – the record of this chat will be
destroyed, right?”

“
Yes, soon as I log
out.”

“
Great. Talk to you soon.”
Christie exited the chat room and shut down his computer. Leaning
back in his chair he said aloud to himself, “I’m getting closer,
Whelan. It’s only a matter of time before I find you.”

Chapter 5—Dingle,
Ireland

Whelan watched as the man’s finger tightened
on the trigger. There was a sudden loud explosion. Whelan didn’t
feel any pain. He didn’t feel the powerful force of a slug tearing
into his body. The Bizon was an automatic weapon with dozens of
rounds in the magazine. He knew there should have been more than
one explosion. It took a nanosecond for him to realize that the man
hadn’t fired the Bizon. In fact, the weapon was falling from the
man’s hands. The front of his jacket was bloody. Blood was
beginning to run from his open mouth. His knees sagged and his head
tilted back, eyes rolling up. He fell face first at Whelan’s feet.
Sean stood three feet behind him holding the Kel-Tek KSG shotgun.
Smoke was wafting softly from its barrel.

The remaining man was slow to react. But
disbelief and shock quickly wore off, and he reached for the butt
of the Makarov in the waistband of his trousers. Two shots rang
out. A double tap. The first slug caught him low, in the pelvic
area, left of center. It spun him 180 degrees. The second slug hit
him in the middle of his back, tearing through the spine between
the L-2 and L-3 vertebrae. Messages from his brain could no longer
reach his legs and he collapsed hard against the counter, sliding
gracelessly to the floor.

Whelan turned to trace the path of the slugs
in reverse. Caitlin stood in the doorway. She held the Glock 23C he
had bought her in both hands, arms extended straight in front just
as he had taught her. Although he had converted the weapon’s barrel
from .40 caliber to .22 to dampen the rise and make it easier for
her to handle, it still was capable of deadly force.

Whelan walked slowly over to Sean and gently
removed the Kel-Tek from his son’s hands. “Good work, Sean,” he
said. He blew Caitlin a kiss and turned his attention to the
surviving intruder. He wasn’t sure just how much survival time the
man had left, and there were questions that needed answering.

Caitlin laid the Glock on a counter top and
ran to Sean, who had been joined by his younger brother, Declan.
She swept both of them into her arms and embraced them tightly. The
boys squirmed self-consciously. This was girl stuff, and they were
uncomfortable having their dad see them being hugged and kissed
like this. It wasn’t manly.