Horns of the Devil - Jeff Trask [02] (29 page)

“That’s not going to happen, Moreno.”

The man with the eye patch frowned.

“Yeah, we know who you really are,” Trask said. “You’re going to be charged Monday morning with importation and conspiracy to distribute cocaine. You’re not going anywhere.”

Moreno snorted in contempt. “You have no authority to deny my request.”

“You’re right, but I told you that Mateo is singing. You thought I was lying. He was very worried when we told him that he could be locked up with hundreds of
Mara
inmates unless he cooperated with us. He’s just a staff weenie, if he’s on the diplomatic list at all. No immunity for him. As for your status, those cocaine charges will be the tip of the iceberg, but they’ll hold you for now. Assuming that the ballistics on those two sniper rifles we recovered from the alley match the rounds from the
Mara
victims, there will be murder charges added later.”

“You have no right to hold me for any charges,” Moreno shrugged. “I have full diplomatic immunity, as I said.” His face showed a hint of concern. “One of my party was a girl—”

“Yes, your niece Marissa. Thanks to you, she is also dead. Your hunt for those who attacked your daughter has killed far too many.”

Moreno’s arm jerked against the cuff that restrained him. “You have no right to even mention her,” he growled.

“Don’t rip your stitches,” Trask said calmly. “I have every right to question you about each aspect of this little crime spree you’ve run, including your motives. When did it start? With the murder of the Barrio 18 kid in Northeast? Is he the one who killed Armando Lopez?”

“Yes, he killed Armando.” Moreno’s face contracted into a sneer. “At my direction.”

Trask kept his poker face despite his surprise.
I’m in control of this little duel, you
psycho, not you. Why? Oh, I get it.
“Yes, we thought that might be the case. Frame the MS-13 for that murder, get your college buddy the ambassador to invite you up to solve the problem, and now you’re in the country and free to pursue your hunt of Esteban Ortega. You just had to kill the 18er to tie up a loose end. Is that how it went?”

“Yes. Precisely. It was our only way to get into your country, and the diplomatic immunity was a considerable bonus. I demand transportation to the airport immediately.”

“Pretty sloppy, Moreno, using the same gun on that kid and on the attorneys, then leaving it in my den. You had to know the ballistics would tie the gun to you and your guys.”

“The plan was to leave it in the dead hand of Ortega after I killed him. You would have thought him responsible for all of the murders.”

“Maybe. Did you kill Armando’s parents, too, Moreno? Was that just another frame job to make us think the
Maras
did it? Must have been at least a little bit difficult carving up your friend and his wife like that.”

“I
was going
to kill them. The idiots in the new government had signed a truce with the gangs. A
stinking truce
with the vermin that ruined our nation and killed my daughter and so many more.” He looked at Trask defiantly. “I would not have cut them, I would just have shot them like the dogs they had become. The
Maras
must have beaten us to them. They were already dead when we got there.”

“I’m sure Ortega blamed them for bringing you and your crew into town and declaring open season on them. And the defense attorneys, Moreno? Why kill them? They were just doing their jobs. They were innocent. They had families, too.”

“They were trying to free the
Maras
. They spoke for them.”

“And me?
My wife
? We were trying to prosecute the gangs, get them off the streets.”
Explain that to me, you sick son of a bitch.

“You were interfering. If you got to Ortega first, you could have put him out of my reach. You should have just let us manage it in our own way. We would have cleaned up quite a bit of your local gang problem and then returned home.”

“Cleaning it up for us? Is that what you call those slaughters at the car wash?”

“Call them what you like. I prefer to call them eradications. Pest control, I think you call it. I wish to return home now. If you will not honor my request to provide transportation to the airport, please connect me with someone in your State Department so I may make an official demand.”

“I will not do that, Moreno. Your State Department mole is in the morgue with the rest of your team. Murphy can’t help you anymore. What was his stake in this, anyway?”

“Money. He just wanted money, always more money. He didn’t want to come with us tonight. I made him, told him he was going to earn his money like a man, for once. You can call someone else at your State Department.”

“Like I said, I’m not going to do that. I
will
introduce you to someone in your own Ministry of Foreign Relations. Bring him on in, Jason.”

“What? Who are you speaking to? You said you were not wearing a wire!”

“I’m not, Moreno. There’s a microphone above your bed that can be monitored from the nurse’s station up the hall. Getting out of a hospital bed can be tricky. We wouldn’t want you falling and hurting yourself without being able to send help right away.”

Trask opened the door. Mays and the other man entered the room.

Trask stepped aside, but he never took his gaze off Moreno. “May I present Miguel Navarrete-Ponce, very recently named the new ambassador to the United States from El Salvador. He has something to say which I believe will be of interest to you.”

“Luis Moreno-Montillo,” Navarrete announced officially, “as the officially delegated representative of El Salvador in this country, I now inform you that any diplomatic status which was previously conferred upon you in your true name,
or
in the name of Jorge Rios-Garcia, is hereby revoked and waived.” He turned to Trask. “He is your prisoner now, Mister Trask, and may be prosecuted according to the laws of your country.” He handed Trask an envelope. “The written waiver has been signed and sealed by the president of El Salvador.”

“This is a violation of international law!” Moreno screamed.

“I assure you that it is in accordance with the provisions of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations,” Navarrete said. “If you were a real diplomat, and not just a murderous disgrace to your nation, you would know that.”

Trask turned to Mays, who had produced a small metal object from his pocket. “Did your little digital recorder get it all?” he asked.

Mays nodded. “Every word of it. These hospital mics are actually very good. I might have to pick up a few of ’em.”

Moreno continued to scream at them in Spanish, the sounds of fury from a defeated madman.

Trask walked into the hallway and spoke to one of the ERT guards. “Nobody in or out except for
verified
medical personnel.
Verified
, OK? Tell the doc he can shoot this guy up with whatever he wants to now, as long as it’s medically justified. He probably needs considerable sedation, and the rest of the patients on the ward will need their sleep.”

“Got it, Colonel,” the man said.

Colonel,
Trask smiled to himself.
It’s going to take some time to shake that one.

Navarrete had followed him out into the hallway.

“Thank you, Mister Trask. You have served both our countries well today.”

“As have you, Mr. Ambassador. How is the truce going with your gangs back home?”

Navarrete almost spit on the floor. “It is a sham, of course.” He noticed the surprise on Trask’s face. “I am a realist, Mr. Trask. There
are
some of us in the new government. Thugs are thugs, regardless of their political affiliations. We had several schoolboys murdered a few days ago in Las Colinas. The MS-13 had been trying to recruit them at their school, and when the boys refused, they were taken out and stabbed to death, then dumped into a mass grave. The youngest was fifteen. I am afraid that both our countries will be fighting them for some time to come.” He reached into a pocket of his sport coat. “Here is my card, with my cell number. Please call me at any time if I can be of further assistance.”

Trask nodded. “Mr. Ambassador.” He followed Navarrete up the hallway.

Sivella was standing in the hall by the nurse’s station with Lynn. Both were beaming.

“Nice work again,” Sivella said. “Think it’s time for that phone call yet?”

“Yeah,” Trask said, reaching for his cell phone. “This won’t be pretty.”

.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Saturday, September 16, 9:30 a.m.

R
oss Eastman, the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, sat behind his desk staring at Trask. “I don’t know whether to fire you or pin a medal on you, Jeff. If you’d called me to let me know this was going to happen—”

“Ross, we didn’t
know
what was going to happen,” Willie Sivella said. “We had it planned as a controlled arrest scenario. Moreno and his goons were the ones who refused to surrender.”

“The press is going to claim it was a staged massacre and an ambush, Willie. You know that.” Eastman walked around to the front of his desk and leaned against it.

He’s relaxing a little,
Trask thought.
I might get out of here alive.

“And you know we can’t control what some of those freaks write,” Doroz chimed in. “They’re going to spin it the way they want to spin it, regardless of the truth.”

“He’s right, Ross,” Bill Patrick said. “We can defend everything that’s been done here, and these guys were trying to protect you in case something went bad.”

Eastman stared at Trask again. “You’ve got a lot of defenders here, Jeff. I want to hear from you.” He shot a look back at Patrick before returning his stare to Trask. “Convince me that this didn’t ‘go bad,’ as your
current supervisor
calls it.”

Trask measured his words for a moment. “We found the bug in Barry’s office. We certainly suspected who was on the other end, but didn’t know for sure. The bug explained a lot, but left dozens of questions unanswered. Did we set a trap? Definitely. Did we know things could get hot out there? Of course, given the fact that we’ve had executions popping up all over town. I saw it as a chance both to answer some of those questions and to apprehend the killers. We controlled the situation with as many tactical boundaries as we could to protect the public. Moreno and company decided they didn’t want to be apprehended. In the final analysis, we had one good guy wounded, and we took down or apprehended all the perpetrators.”

“That sounds like your response to the press, if you ask me, Ross,” Sivella said.

“It’s a start, Willie, but I didn’t ask you,” Eastman said curtly. “The least Mr. Trask could have done is to have followed your suggestion to call me from the warehouse. We have a wounded ambassador and a dead State Department employee, for God’s sake. Do we have enough evidence to lock them down as being involved?”

“Ross, if I had called you from the warehouse, you would have been in the same mood you’re in now, and rightly so,” Trask said. “You’d have probably jerked my remaining chain so short that I would not have been allowed to follow up at the hospital with Moreno. With his taped confession and other evidence in the case, we do have more than enough to answer any questions the press, or the AG, or State, or the White House may have, and we even have the backing of the Salvadoran government. It was also my goal, Ross, to keep you and my ‘current supervisor’ out of this until we could make it right.”

“I assigned you to this case, Jeff, and I don’t need protecting from myself. And if this big walrus,” Eastmen gestured toward Patrick, “told you otherwise, he was wrong.” He took a long breath. “Thanks for your concern, anyway. Both of you. Bill, your job now is to convince some of those press hounds in our conference room that one of them could win a damned Pulitzer if they get this story right. If you figure out how to do that, let me know. It’ll help me answer the questions coming from upstream. We have ten minutes before the press conference that I had to call before I knew what the hell I was going to say.”

12:20 pm.

“What did Ross tell the press?” Lynn asked.

“He basically quoted your husband’s answers to his own questions,” Doroz said, chewing a bite of his burger. “I think he calmed down. Everybody’s safe with Ross, including Jeff ’s ‘current supervisor.’”

“Ross dressed down
Bill Patrick
?” she asked.

“Just for a minute,” Trask said. “They go back a long way. I think he was just pissed at being kept out of the loop and wanted Bill to know that. Point taken. Anyway, we get to stay on the case of Esteban Ortega. No conflict there. I just have to hand off everything on Moreno to the Prince of Alexandria. The Department gave the case to G. Gary Gray from the Eastern District of Virginia. I’m briefing him after lunch.”

“You’re shitting me,” Lynn said. “Isn’t that the guy who walked out on that terrorism case in Phoenix?”

“Yep. The G unit charged a dozen defendants with financing terrorist activities, got a mistrial, and then left that appointment to get closer to Washington and the big money firms. He left his former office holding the bag, and they had to scramble to get ready for the re-trial. At least they won it. My spies in Alexandria think he lobbied for this one because it can be the feather in his cap that gets him a high-six-figure job on K Street with one of the big lobbying firms. He figures he can get the first death penalty in the District in the last century.”

“You think he’s got a shot at that, Jeff?” Doroz asked.

“There are plenty of bodies and statutory aggravating factors for the Department to certify the case as capital,” Trask said, “but in the final analysis, I doubt it. Odds are that Magistrate Noble will appoint J. T. Burns to represent Moreno. He won’t be able to stop a conviction—there’s too much evidence—but he’ll eat Gray alive on the sentencing phase. Moreno’s dead daughter is a powerful mitigating factor, and Burns will pull a high-dollar shrink in to say that the loss of his little girl snapped something in Moreno’s mind. This is a predominantly black town, and our jurors don’t think that capital punishment has ever been fairly applied. I’ll probably end up having to testify to get Moreno’s confession admitted.”

“You did pretty well against Burns in the Reid case,” Lynn said. “You can handle him from the witness stand, too.”

“I don’t think it’s going to matter,” Trask said. “Moreno will get convicted here, then he’ll get life. The wild card is what happens in Maryland after the first trial. If Gray doesn’t get a death verdict here, the Maryland guys get a shot at Moreno for the murders he committed there. Depending on the jury pool, a capital verdict there isn’t out of the question. Anyway, you guys need to give Gray all the help he needs, whether or not you think he deserves it. He’ll be a pain in the ass to work with, but the goal is convicting Moreno. Remember that.”

“Not a problem,” Doroz said. “You’ve just spoiled us a little. At least we can still work on Ortega. What’s the next move there?”

“Finding him,” Trask said. “Hopefully our friend Santos can get a lead on that. It’s my guess that Ortega’s got his head down somewhere in Fairfax County on the Virginia side. That’s where that heaviest concentration of MS-13 types live around DC. Santos’ attorney is supposed to get back with me on that.” He looked at Doroz. “How’s Puddin’?”

“He’s gone, left his credentials on my desk with a letter of resignation. He had some leave on the books, so I signed him out in case he changes his mind. I just don’t expect him to.”

Trask nodded, looking at Lynn. “If you were gone—”

“Don’t say that, Jeff,” she said. “This is who you are. You’re needed here.”

“Still, that had to be a hell of a blow,” Trask said. “If you were gone, I’m not sure
who
I’d be anymore.”

3:00 p.m.

“I fully expect to get a capital verdict in this case, given the evidence,” Gray said as he looked around the squad conference room. Trask’s incident summaries were still pinned to the wall.

“Good luck with that,” Trask said. “Burns is no pushover.”

“I hear you did well against him in the Reid case.” Gray was still looking at the wall.

Trask sized him up. Gray was a tall, blond guy who could have had a career as a male model, and had probably been told that by anyone who could hold his attention long enough to pry him away from a mirror.

“We got lucky and found a smoking gun. Even with that, I’m not sure the jury would have given Reid the juice,” Trask said.
If you don’t get your verdict, you’ll
find someone else to blame. It certainly won’t be your fault, will it?

“I’m certain I can have the same success that you did, Jeff. I was first in my class at UVA law, was editor of the Law Review, and I’ve had over thirty trials now. How many have you had?”

“I stopped counting at three-hundred,” Trask said. He saw the jolt in Gray’s demeanor. It lasted only a second.

“Impressive. How did you come by all that experience?”

“About 275 courts-martial. I had the whole Southeast. Twenty-five bases. On the road for five years, trial to trial.”

“Oh, so those were
military
trials.”

Trask didn’t react. He had expected the comment. “We used the Federal Rules of Evidence, with some small modifications. They were real trials, with judges, juries, and everything. And since you were wondering, I attended Ole Miss Law. Not Law Review though. I decided to get more trial training so I went to the Moot Court Board. They had a higher GPA than the Law Review while I was there. You have everything you need now?”

“Yes, I think so. Thanks for the update.”