The Professionals (25 page)

S
tevens and Windermere touched down in Miami just after nine in the morning, and they were on a plane to Jacksonville by a quarter to ten. Agent Vance had paged them as soon as they touched down in Dade County, passing along the good news about Marie McAllister and hooking them up with two new tickets north. It was six in the morning in Seattle. If the kid had slept at all, it was a miracle.

“Pender’s people live out in Port Angeles,” he told Windermere, “but I made a little midnight visit to the McAllister family home. Couple of sleepy doctors. Surprised as anyone to hear their daughter was a fugitive.”

“Not the kind of thing you tell your parents,” said Windermere.

“True enough. I showed them a couple pictures from Marie’s laptop. The parents didn’t have a clue, but the girl’s sister recognized the other two suspects. The big guy’s Matt Sawyer. Seattle kid, father’s in advertising. He went to school here as well. The little one’s Ben Stirzaker—she kept calling him Mouse, whatever that means. Kid’s supposed to be some kind of computer genius.”

“Can you e-mail this stuff?” said Windermere. “We’ll review it when we touch down in Jacksonville.”

“On it,” said Vance. He paused. “One more thing. This guy D’Antonio slipped our tail. Miami guys lost him about a half hour after he left airport property.”

D’Antonio’s driver, a Hispanic cat in a boat of a Cadillac, had managed to duck the Feds without much of a problem, Vance explained. The agents made the driver as one Eddy “Zeke” Sevillano, a middleman in the Miami drug and prostitution racket, but so far, nobody could pin down where the man slept at night—or how he tied in with Alessandro D’Antonio. “Either way,” said Vance, “this guy D’Antonio’s clearly a pro.”

“The bastard nearly killed me,” said Windermere. “We catch up with him again, and I’ll show him who’s pro. Keep looking for him. In the meantime, we still have the girl.”

“She’ll have to do,” said Vance.

“She’ll more than do, Vance. She’ll get us the rest of her gang. You running out of things to do yet?”

Vance laughed. “Pile it on, lady.”

“First things first, let’s freeze their bank accounts,” said Windermere. “We know they’ve got money somewhere, so let’s find it and take it from them. And get McAllister transferred to the Jacksonville regional office. We’ll interview her when we’re on the ground.”

Then they were on another plane, Windermere bouncing in her seat as the tiny commuter jet roared down the runway. She looks pumped, thought Stevens, watching his partner humming to herself, her eyes darting to look out the window and then back around to the cabin. She couldn’t wait for the plane to land.

Stevens couldn’t wait, either. He had a splitting headache, and the little commuter plane scared him worse than any big jetliner. But he was pumped up as well. The hunch had paid off. Somehow, somebody in the Jacksonville airport had recognized Marie McAllister and had managed to corral her before she disappeared again. It was a goddamn Hail Mary and it had worked, and now Stevens was eager to get into an interrogation room with McAllister and see what she had to say.

The flight touched down in Jacksonville at a quarter past eleven, and Windermere and Stevens were first in the terminal. They were
met by a big plainclothes cop named French and an FBI agent in a pantsuit with a briefcase in one hand and a tray of Starbucks in the other. Windermere smiled wide when she saw her. “Wendy Gallant,” she said. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Gallant smiled identically. “Jacksonville, baby. Moving up in the world. You still drinking lattes?”

“As long as you’re buying.” Windermere reached for a cup. She turned to Stevens. “Agent Gallant was my mentor in Miami. Taught me everything I know about police work.”

“Bullshit,” said Gallant. “You taught yourself.” She smiled at Stevens. “I swear Windermere here didn’t sleep the first year and a half out of Quantico. Spent her life in the field, on the street. Any assignment you had, she was there.”

Windermere shrugged. “The street’s a hell of a lot more exciting than classrooms and theory. I wanted to get out and do something.”

“Do something.” Gallant winked at Stevens. “This girl took down four Miami PD undercover drug runners before the AD could finally corral her.”

“Goddamn city cops,” said Windermere. “A bunch of pylons.”

“Anyway, it sounds like the teacher’s become the student. Got a phone call from an Agent Vance this morning telling me to get my ass to the airport to help out with your little kidnapping situation. So I brought you coffee, boss.”

“Don’t call me boss,” said Windermere. “Stevens runs the show around here.”

“If you can stand taking orders from a state policeman,” said Stevens. He shook Gallant’s hand.

“You’re FBI now, big guy,” Windermere said, punching his arm. She turned back to Gallant. “Where’s the prisoner?”

French cleared his throat. “We got a holding cell in the security zone. I’ll take you to her.”

The plainclothesman led them through the airport, and Stevens walked beside him. “You spotted the girl getting off the plane?” he said.

French nodded without breaking stride. “She was on the fifth or sixth flight in this morning. You guys sent a pretty good picture.”

“She go quietly?”

“Hell, no,” said French. “Had to cuff her on the sidewalk. Took three guys to get her inside. Kept screaming about there’d been a mistake. Called herself Rebecca something.”

“You get a look at any of the other suspects?”

The plainclothesman shook his head. “Had our hands full with the girl. Whole damn sidewalk was a zoo.” He glanced at Stevens. “Guess we should have let her lead us to the rest of them, but we didn’t want to lose her. Your man Vance said you’ve had a bit of trouble keeping her contained.”

Stevens nodded. “She’s been slippery. Glad you guys were on the ball.”

French led them along a back hallway, keyed a code into a heavy door, and swung it open, gesturing Stevens inside. He held it until Windermere and Gallant were inside as well and then closed it firm behind.

The airport’s security office was all linoleum and fluorescent light, generic plastic office furniture, and a sound track of electronic chirps and whirls. Beside the door was a bulletin board hung with security notices and Wanted posters. Marie McAllister’s face was tacked dead center.

“This way,” said French. He took out a key ring and fit it into a locked door at the rear of the room, swinging the door out and open. He gestured inside and Stevens peered in, finding himself on the threshold of a miserable green box, empty save a bench and a stainless-steel toilet and one solitary occupant: in the corner of the room, curled up on the unforgiving bench, the girl who called herself Rebecca Decoursey sat swollen-eyed and hunched, her knees to her chest, her curly hair flat and lifeless.

G
od
damn
.” Pender punched the wall.
“Motherfucker.”

He punched the wall again and pulled back, his hand already starting to throb. He looked around for something to throw and then he stopped and closed his eyes and forced himself to steady his breathing.

They were holed up in the Jacksonville Fly-Inn, about a mile and a half from the airport. Sawyer, Mouse, and Tiffany sat arrayed around the room, watching him, Sawyer in a chair in the corner and Tiffany and Mouse curled up on the bed. Pender paced the room. He’d been pacing for over an hour, and he couldn’t make himself stop. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Marie’s face and he felt sick all over again.

Sawyer caught his eye. “We had to let her go.”

“We could have done something,” said Pender. “We could have snatched her and thrown her in the truck and ran. We didn’t need to leave her.”

Sawyer stood. “Pender, man. Did you see that place? Cops everywhere. If we hung around, we would have gone down with her. We had to get out.”

“Bullshit.”

“We can’t do her any good if we’re on the inside with her, bro.”
Sawyer put his arm around him. “If you and I get picked up, then we’re all screwed. Mouse needs us, and Tiffany doesn’t know the score yet. We gotta be cool, all right?”

Pender looked at Sawyer. Finally, he nodded. “You’re right,” he said. He ran his fingers through his hair. “I just cannot believe this is happening.”

Mouse cleared his throat. “Um, guys.”

Sawyer turned around. “What?”

“You said you were like twenty feet away from her when it happened, right?” Mouse glanced at Pender. “Are you sure you didn’t get made?”

Sawyer looked at Pender. Neither man replied.

“There could be cops on our asses right now,” said Mouse. “If they got our plates, we’re screwed. We need to ditch the ride fast and get out of the city.”

Pender shook his head. “No way. We’re not leaving until we spring Marie.”

“Pender—”

Tiffany spoke up from the bed. “You’ve known this girl a long time, right? You’ve been with her for a while?”

“Four years,” said Pender.

Tiffany nodded. “Okay.”

“Why?”

She stayed quiet for a second. Then she sighed. “Don’t get mad, Pender. I’m not saying she’ll flip. If you trust her, that’s great. But look, they probably make it damn tough in those interrogation rooms.”

Mouse struggled to sit up. “She’s not going to flip. She knows we have a plan.”

They had talked about this—after Tucson, when a stray city cop in an unmarked Impala nearly busted up the whole enterprise. Snuck up on Mouse outside the target’s home, flashed his cherry lights, and informed Mouse his taillight was busted. Nearly gave the kid a heart attack.

Mouse stayed polite and somehow stayed calm and the cop let him
off with a warning. The target paid the ransom and the cop never made the connection. But for weeks afterward, Pender felt sick when he considered what might have gone wrong.

If we’re going to be professional criminals, he’d decided, we have to figure out what we do if someone gets picked up.

“Let ’em rot,” Sawyer had announced. “It’ll probably be Mouse, anyway.”

“Mouse is indispensable,” Marie told him. “You’re not.”

“Fine,” said Sawyer. “Then I’ll rot. Big deal. I’ve done jail time before. If I’m dumb enough to get caught, I deserve to go back.”

“You did an overnight stay for a bar brawl,” said Marie. “Don’t talk like you’re some kind of federal hard-time badass.”

Pender put his hands up. “Sawyer’s got a point,” he said. “A professional crew would take the charge and keep quiet.”

“No snitching,” said Mouse.

“We don’t talk to the police,” said Pender. “That’s the first thing. Whatever they say, they’re lying. Don’t take the bait. We’ll get you a lawyer, and he’ll get you out.”

Marie looked at him. “And what if he can’t?”

Pender smiled at her. “With our money, he can.”

Now, stuck in a Jacksonville hotel room two years down the road, Pender thought back to that conversation and wanted to implode. I should have kept her safer, he thought. I shouldn’t have let her go home on her own.

He stopped pacing and breathed again, slow. He took out his wallet and pulled out a business card. I planned for this, he thought. I just thought the scenario would remain hypothetical. But if we keep cool and stay rational, we can get Marie out in no time. Pender walked to the phone and punched in a Seattle number. Then he waited. He looked at Sawyer, forced a smile. “Friends in high places,” he said.

Someone picked up. “Torrance and Steinberg,” said the man. “Victor Carter speaking.”

“Victor,” said Pender. “It’s Arthur Pender. Long time.”

There was a long pause. “Arthur Pender,” the man said finally. “Long time is right. Must be two years at least.”

“I have a situation, Victor,” said Pender. “One of my friends is in trouble. Kidnapping. And murder. She’s innocent, but the FBI is involved. We need a lawyer, and quick.”

Carter let out a low whistle. “You’re talking big bucks here.”

“Big bucks is fine.”

“I mean, a hundred thousand just to retain anyone in this office. Can you do that kind of money?”

“A hundred thousand,” said Pender, “is not a problem. How soon can you be in Jacksonville?”

“Florida? Tomorrow evening, I guess.” Carter exhaled. “I just need to see the money first. It’s a big commitment we’re talking.”

“I understand,” Pender told him. “I’ll get you the money. No problem.”

Pender hung up the phone. He turned back to the room. “Got us a lawyer,” he said. “How soon can we get a hundred grand for a retainer?”

Mouse winked at him. “An hour or so, tops,” he said. “Tiff, can you hand me that computer?”

Sawyer caught Pender’s eye as Tiffany handed over the computer. “We still don’t know if we got away clean from the airport, boss.”

Pender stayed quiet a moment. “Christ,” he said finally. “All right. We keep moving. We get a new ride and some new IDs. We get the money to Carter, and he springs Marie.”

Pender turned to Mouse. “Can you handle new aliases?”

Mouse stared down at his screen. “You know it.”

“Time frame?”

“Twenty-four hours to get us into the system. A few days for the paperwork.”

“We need some cash, too,” said Pender. “I’m down to scratch. And we gotta find you a doctor, probably out of state. I don’t think we can risk it in Florida.”