Jo Robertson - The Traitor

When he looked over at her, she'd buttoned up her blouse, tucked her shirt in her slacks, and put her shoes on. Her high color gave her a vibrant, sexy look. Thank God for the interruption. He felt like a man at the edge of a precipice who'd barely escaped losing his footing and plunging off.

Fifteen minutes later they left, taking separate cars to the scene at Beale's Lake, Rafe following Torres because he was unfamiliar with the area. When they arrived at the lake, he noted the Lexus parked outside the gate, all four doors ajar. The EMTs were working over a dark-haired girl in the back seat. Slater's battered truck and three patrol cars lined the turnabout, and Rafe and Isabella had to park some distance from the gate.

Slater met them once they'd crossed over the barrier. He walked ahead of them down towards the lake. "Park ranger found them when he was making his late rounds," he said without preamble, gesturing with a nod of his head. "Down by the sand."

At the edge of the lake the scene had been cordoned off and the coroner hovered over a blanket, examining the bodies. Slater stooped to recover two glassine packets from the blanket. Each was partially filled with a white, powdery substance.

"What do you think?" asked Rafe. "Is it the high-grade stuff?"

"I'd bet money on it," Slater answered, examining the packets before he placed them in an evidence bag. "Take a look at the bodies. Looks like overdoses."

"That's right, Sheriff Slater," Dr. McKenzie, a small, precise man, interjected. "My guess is very high quality heroin because most of the drug wasn't ingested and appears to remain in the packets. Only high grade would cause overdose with that small amount."

He shook his gray head. "Autopsy will confirm, but see the blue lips and tinged skin?" He pointed to the blonde's mouth. "And the limb contortion indicates convulsion. If they'd gotten the Narcan, they might've made it, but… " His voice trailed off sadly. "The cause of death undoubtedly will be respiratory failure."

Waylon Harris, Slater's deputy sheriff, pulled a wallet from the dead man's pocket and handed it to Slater who read aloud off the driver's license. "Jeremy Brown, DOB 6-15-90, credit cards, about… " He counted the money. "… two hundred in cash."

Another deputy, holding a woman's handbag, hurried from the Lexus. "You'll want to see this, Sheriff." He pulled out a ladies billfold from the purse and handed it over.

Slater opened it without a word and then groaned. "Holy crap hitting the fan."

"What?" Isabella asked.

"Joan Anne Welch." Slater sighed as if the weight of the world had just descended on him.

Rafe looked from her to Slater and back again. "So?"

"She's State Senator John Welch's little girl," she answered, her face pinched with worry. "Damn, Barrington's going to be all over this."

"Patch," Slater called over to the coroner, "can you get that autopsy report to me ASAP?"

"I always do, Sheriff," the coroner muttered with a grim smile. "I like the mommies and daddies to know right away what happened to their babies."

McKenzie was a dapper man whose voice had the stilted formality of a college professor. Slater enjoyed calling him "Patch," and the doctor enjoyed pretending he disliked the nickname.

"Jesus Christ," Rafe muttered. "They're bringing in this shit fast and in volume." He looked at Slater again. "Seven a.m., your office?"

"Yeah, it'll be that long for the autopsy even with a rush. The medics are taking the other girl to the hospital, but when she's stable we can interview her." He looked down at the dead girl. "I'll do the notification myself. Bella, you'd better contact Charlie."

Even though Bella was technically Slater's superior, she didn't mind taking orders from him. She'd never trusted anyone more, even her own brothers. He was smart, cool-headed, and would step in front of a bus for her. And she knew he hated the family notifications.

"I'll go with you," she offered.

Slater nodded once. "We have to know where they got the heroin," he said to Rafe. "What can your sources tell you? Maybe we should move on it tonight."

Rafe shook his head. "We'd better get a couple hours of sleep. It'll take that long for my contacts to find the dealer, and it's going to be one long day." He knew he wouldn't sleep tonight, not by a long shot.

Isabella's face was pale and drawn. He bet she wouldn't sleep either. They'd both be remembering what had happened on her sofa, what would've happened if they hadn't been interrupted by a gruesome death. Neither would find sleep for a very long time.

An hour later he parked the car in front of the motel unit he occupied. He hadn't spoken to Isabella when they left the lake, but he'd raised his hand in a farewell gesture as she drove away.

Christ, he thought, as he climbed the stairs to his room, he was tired of eating fast-food and living out of his suitcase.

The call came in on Rafe's cell phone shortly after he'd finally evaded thoughts of Isabella and just drifted off into a dreamless sleep. "This had better be important," he muttered, rousing himself.

"Hashemi?"

"Yeah." He didn't recognize the voice and few people contacted him on this line. "Who's this and how the hell did you get this number?"

"Banadoora." Arabic for tomato. That would be McNally, the red-faced Homeland Security agent who crawled up Rafe's ass so far he wanted to fart the bastard out like a giant turd. Rafe waited for the password question.

"Ma ismak?" What is your name? McNally loved the cloak and dagger pretense.

"Khiyar," Rafe responded, using the Arabic word for cucumber, a little Homeland Security cornball humor. The DHS boys thought that was hilarious because they said Rafe was always as cool as a cucumber. "What do you want, McNally?"

The agent rattled off the name and address of the contact. Homeland Security was already on this. That meant only one thing – they'd made the connections between the new drug routes and distributions to terrorist activities.

"The China White profits are being funneled right back into Thailand," McNally continued, "and then into an organization called Mohandis in the Golden Crescent."

That meant Afghanistan and Al Qaeda.

"Winters wants you to run a parallel investigation with the county D.A.'s office. Don't make waves, just get along with that woman ADA until we have the background intel we need. Then we'll assume jurisdiction over the investigation."

So it's begun, Rafe thought, snapping the cell phone shut. From their overseas intelligence, they'd expected this, but hearing the reality of it was like taking an icy bath. Torres would be royally pissed when the takeover happened, and he felt bad about that, but it couldn't be helped; he had no choice. National security trumped local charges, no matter how ugly the bad guys were.

The raid on the drug house lasted less than fifteen minutes.

Slater accompanied Rafe and four federal agents. The sun had barely begun to peek in the eastern sky, a hazy purplish-pink that indicated a high pollution day. Most people on the quiet, residential street were still asleep before beginning their workday.

Slater positioned himself at the rear, a motion Rafe appreciated, so that his team of agents could take the lead, approaching the front and back entries of the house with weapons drawn. His federal warrant didn't require an announcement, and Rafe had no intention of alerting possibly armed drug dealers of their imminent arrest.

With a nod to the agent opposite him, Rafe indicated the man should kick in the door. Then Rafe went in first, low and to the right. Complete, eerie silence filled the interior. No dogs, unusual for a drug house.