Kirk Russell - Redback

‘This is our missing agent, Jim Osiers. He was on my squad. We started at the DEA the same year. We came in together. He’s the agent missing in Baja.’

Marquez was aware that the detective already knew who it was and that he’d only confirmed it for him. He heard Detective Broward say he was sorry, but it didn’t really matter who was sorry. It was the scale of the thing they were up against. The money was too large, the demand for drugs too big, and it seemed to him that the world was different than it had been when he’d started at the DEA. The violence had been there, but it was more accepted now, just as it was accepted as normal that more people had guns that spit more bullets faster. He turned to Broward.

‘His wife is going to insist on seeing him, but she shouldn’t see him like this.’

‘We’ll take care of her.’

Broward managed to say it like he meant it, though of course no one could take care of her or the kids, or protect them from the other stories that would come out now. From behind him, Hidalgo asked, ‘Is it Jim?’ When Marquez didn’t turn, he called again, ‘John, is it him?’

Three days later, Marquez picked up Sheryl at LAX as she returned home. ‘John,’ was all she said as she got into the car. As he pulled away from the curb and threaded into traffic she pressed her palms flat on her thighs and stared through the windshield. Her dark hair was parted in the middle and cut at an angle that fell across her cheeks. She closed her eyes as a car somewhere behind them honked.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked.

‘I’ve been better. I went back and talked again to Alicia, the girlfriend, and she showed me things Jim had written her. Not long love letters or anything but notes, and it’s his handwriting. She showed me jewelry he gave her. They’ve talked about names for the baby. I don’t know what he was planning, but he wasn’t denying it was his baby, and one of the names they were kicking around was his middle name. He told her he was going to move to Baja. He didn’t say how he’d make a living.’ She exhaled and leaned back. ‘He was out of here, John.’

‘How was he when you were there?’

‘Tense, but I always think he’s tense, especially when he says he’s relaxed. He had five beers in him when we went out that night. I had three.’ Sheryl turned and looked at him for the first time since getting in the car. When their eyes met she said, ‘Here’s what I know. He had a girlfriend. That’s confirmed, and I can tell you she’s pregnant and grieving. Even if the Salazars or somebody made her get involved with Jim, she’s in shock. And there was a bank account in La Paz. I drove down there and the bank manager took me through it.’

‘How much money went through it?’

‘Three hundred sixty-three thousand dollars in six and a half months, but maybe he got a pay raise I didn’t hear about.’ She reached over and touched his arm. ‘I didn’t tell you that, OK. Let Holsten tell you.’

‘Does Holsten know you went to La Paz?’

‘He sent me. Everything I’ve done in Baja he’s directing. You don’t know that either, but that’s not about you, John. It’s about the leak. He said he won’t trust anyone until we know how the Salazars got the identities of our squad.’

‘It may not have been the Salazars.’

‘Same point.’

‘OK, what else did you learn in Baja?’

‘I’ve got to say this first, I’ve let myself start believing things about Jim I couldn’t have imagined two days ago. When he disappeared I said bullshit, bullshit, bullshit to what the Mex Feds were telling me. Now, I believe it’s all possible, and it’s making me question everything. I don’t know what to do with that.’

‘Don’t do anything with it yet.’

‘All right, I’m trying not to, but Pete Phelps showed up with more evidence. The ATF was already on Jim.’

‘That’s according to Phelps?’

‘Pete is one of the good guys.’

If you say so, Marquez thought, and then lined up in traffic getting on to the 405. It was going to take a while to get Sheryl home. He turned over the idea of Pete Phelps showing up and the ATF watching Osiers.

‘Were you really the one to ID his body?’ she asked.

‘I think LAPD figured it out first and I confirmed it.’

‘Holsten wants me to look at the panel truck. He thinks it might be the one Jim and I saw at the beach. What did they do to Jim?’

‘Crushed his skull.’

‘Oh, God.’ For several minutes she didn’t say anything and then, ‘The ATF thinks Jim was trying to squeeze too much money out of the Salazars and they got tired of it.’

‘Is that a Phelps opinion or an ATF conclusion?’

‘Pete is actually OK, John.’

She didn’t talk after that but she was right, he didn’t trust much of anything Pete Phelps said. They drove in silence most of the rest of the way to her house where Marquez said, ‘I’ll call you tomorrow and let’s get lunch. I’ve got a meeting with Holsten in the early morning. I’ll call you after that.’

‘I’d like that. I need to talk.’

‘So do I. See you tomorrow.’

Saturday morning early the Field Office was quiet. Holsten had stopped on the way in at the day-old bakery he frequented. Croissants, muffins, and cookies sat on a white paper plate. Next to the plate was an unopened quart of orange juice and paper cups. It was much more than the two of them would eat and Holsten explained before Marquez asked.

‘Agents Javits and Steiner are on their way here. We’re going to reorganize this morning. I’ve got to go get something out of my car. Tell them the food is for everybody if they get here before I get back.’

When Sheryl walked in she said, ‘He called me late last night and said be here at 8:00.’

Steiner, it turned out, thought he was going to be promoted, not transferred to the one squad that was falling apart. He looked angry as Holsten delivered the news. Boyer, Group 5’s ASAC, was home sick with the flu, but Holsten made it clear the changes weren’t Boyer’s anyway.

‘They’re mine,’ he said. ‘Agent Marquez you’re relieved of your supervision duties. Agent Javits you’ll work with your ASAC and eventually be squad leader. Marquez you’ll work undercover locally with Agent Steiner.’ He nodded toward Steiner. ‘Tom is an old friend of mine. We started at the DEA together. We go back that far. He’s transferring to your squad as of this morning.’

Nobody said anything and Holsten stared at Marquez.

‘Agent Marquez, we’re going to send a strong message, starting with the hippie tour boat operators you’re already watching. Monday morning I want to know how we’re going to bust them.’ He paused. ‘What do you call them, again?’

When Marquez didn’t answer, Sheryl volunteered, ‘The Fab Four, but it’s a joke.’

‘We’ll call this Operation Fab Four. This is where we start to rebuild Group Five.’

The meeting ended twenty minutes later. That afternoon Marquez bought flowers from a florist near his apartment and then drove to the Osiers’ house with the big vase and lilies filling his car with fragrance. Last night he’d written a letter that he now gave to Jim’s oldest son, telling the boy that the letter was for his mother and for himself and his two brothers. He came home to his empty apartment and the Saturday mail that included a small package with two micro-cassettes and a one-phrase note in Billy Takado’s handwriting on a piece of lined paper.

‘In case something happens to me. Billy.’

For a minute Marquez didn’t move and then dug in his gear bag for his recorder. He locked the door and closed the slider to the deck, then put the tape labeled #1 in and stood the little recorder on a kitchen counter.