Andrew Peterson - First to Kill

After Harv returned, Nathan said, “We’d better make that call to Ortega. The longer we wait, the harder it’ll be.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“How do you do it, Harv? Keep your cool.”

“Like I said, you beat me to it. That mirror was doomed from the day it was installed.”

“I’ve never seen you break anything.”

“That’s just it, you’ve never seen it. I once beat the living daylights out of a lawn mower with an aluminum bat. It was brand new and gassed up. But the damned thing wouldn’t start. I must have pulled that cord a hundred times before I took the bat to it. Candace came out to the lawn and without saying a word, handed me the instruction manual. She reached down and turned the gas shutoff valve to the on position, winked at me, and then walked away.”

“Yeah, that sounds like Candace.”

“I have to admit, it felt great smashing that mower. Come on, let’s get this call over with.”

“Harv, I’ll make the call to Ortega.”

“No. I should do it. You’re in no shape to talk to Ortega right now. Honestly, it’s my responsibility. I got us into this, I’ll make the call.”

After Harv left the room, he tried to clear his mind of the red fog blanketing his thoughts. He needed to focus, to see the situation from a calm perspective. He concentrated on the FBI’s role in all of this. The farmhouse had been under surveillance before the raid. Okay, why? They obviously thought the Bridgestones might show up there. Still, no one had known about the tunnel at Freedom’s Echo, or else the FBI would’ve been waiting at the other end to grab them. Did Holly Simpson truly believe he and Harv represented the FBI’s best chance of collaring the Bridgestones? It seemed unlikely and overly risky. Maybe Frank Ortega had insisted they remain involved. That seemed more reasonable, but that scenario assumed Ortega had a level of influence with Director Lansing he’d denied during their initial meeting in San Diego. So what was the truth? Nathan wasn’t so sure anymore.

Setting that thought aside, he again envisioned the farmhouse. Immediately his thoughts returned to the garage. Something about it had been odd. He closed his eyes and pictured it in his head. Okay, it had a workbench on one side, tools on the other. The toolboxes were stacked against the far wall. There was a new Enduro motorcycle in the corner. Red, with a luggage rack. What does something like that cost? Four, maybe five grand? They didn’t seem like the type of guys able to afford something like that. It had looked fairly new and well maintained. Everything in that garage had looked new. He pictured the wall of tools above the workbench, everything organized by type and use and hung on neatly organized eye rings and hooks. And the power tools on the opposite side of the garage were also well maintained and arranged by use and type. He remembered the empty power-tool boxes. Who saves the empty boxes?

And why would a pair of losers need a trip wire on their front porch? How many people did that? He pictured the rigged stack of beer bottles. Were they just paranoid? Maybe they thought Leonard and Ernie were going to drop by. Could they have anticipated the authorities’ interest in them?

Nathan looked down at the bandage Harv had applied to his hand and thought about the gauze bandage on cousin Billy’s arm. There had been blood seeping through and the white tape was crossed at the corners. It looked a lot like a field dressing. He held up his hand. A lot like this one. He thought back to his field-medic training.

Shit!

He sprinted across the room and grabbed the phone message from Holly and punched the numbers into the nightstand phone and heard an annoying beeping. He hadn’t punched nine first. He stabbed the button and waited an eternity before hearing a dial tone, forcing himself to slow down and dialing Holly’s cell number carefully.

“Holly Simpson.”

“Holly, listen to me very carefully. We blew it, blew it badly.”

“Who is this? Nathan?”

“We blew it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The farmhouse. I think they were there last night, the Bridgestones, Leonard and Ernie.”

“What? How? That’s impossible.”

“Get back out there Holly, get SWAT out there as fast as you can.”

“Nathan-”

“Holly, please, just do it.”

“But we’ve had the farmhouse under constant surveillance, even before the raid. Nobody’s come or gone from there.”

“Last night I saw what looked like a large diameter pipe sticking up above the ground near the property corner under the windmill. I didn’t think twice about it until now.”

“Another tunnel,” she whispered.

“Holly, be careful, have your people check the garage again, the light switch.”

“I’ll call you later.”

Nathan began pacing the room. “They played us, Harv. They put on a dog-and-pony show and we bought it.”

“You could be wrong, they may not have been there.”

“They were there.”

“Nate, you can’t know that for sure.”

“I didn’t put it all together, I should’ve. Their cousins could’ve lasted a lot longer than they did. They gave up the cabin and the cash to satisfy us, to make us think we’d gotten something valuable. They threw us a bone to get us out of there. I think they had this whole routine planned in case they were ever questioned by the FBI or police. That place was their safe house by design, from the beginning.”

Harv said nothing.

“It was the garage. It kept bugging me. I thought to myself, no way. There’s no way this garage should look this neat and tidy. These guys were total slobs.”

“What if you’re wrong? Holly’s risking a lot taking a SWAT team out there. Suppose they don’t find anything.”

“Harv, you saw those guys, they were covered with oil and grease, especially their hands. The bandage on Billy’s arm was clean. There should’ve been smudges on the tape from tearing it off the roll. It was the only thing in the entire house that was clean. I remember thinking it to myself.”

“Let’s assume you’re right and there was a tunnel and they were there. Why didn’t the cousins give them up? The money would have been theirs.”

“Maybe they were more afraid of them than us. Or maybe they were promised a bigger chunk for keeping quiet. Who the hell knows?”

“Okay, tell me this: Why were they there? What reason could they possibly have for going there?”

Nathan said nothing, didn’t have to.

“The Semtex,” Harv said. “The missing crates from the compound.”

Nathan nodded. “Yep.”

“And the cousins?”

“Dead,” Nathan said. “They wouldn’t risk leaving them alive. Those two don’t leave loose ends.”

“If you’re right, we have to tell Ortega about this.”

“Not yet. Things might take a nasty twist for Holly. I don’t want her taking the fall for this. I know how it works, crap flows downhill. If I have to, I’ll take the blame.”

“How? We weren’t officially there.”

“I’ll threaten to expose everything. The way I see it, crap is going to flow uphill if they try to throw Holly to the wolves.”

“Nathan, you can’t blackmail the FBI.”

“Watch me.”

“No, I mean you can’t do that. I’m not aboard with that.”

Nathan stared out the window. “Then I want a conversation with FBI Director Lansing. Tomorrow.”

“There’s no way Ortega will arrange that.”

“It wasn’t Holly’s decision to involve us, Harv. It was Ortega’s, with Director Lansing’s blessing, the don’t-ask, don’t-tell business. Besides, I’m pretty sure I know who’s behind all this cloak-and-dagger crap.”

“Your father.”

“Yep. Remember Ortega’s answer when I asked if dear old Dad knew of our involvement?”