Дэвид Балдаччи - The Fallen

“They have magnetometers, but that wouldn’t catch powder like this. Now, they do search bags. But I’m betting the duffel has a false bottom. I opened it up when I was in his office, and it seemed to be shallow for how large the bag was. And it wouldn’t take much space to hide bottles like these.”

“No, it wouldn’t.”

Decker indicated the bottle. “So educate me on the economics of this.”

“The cost to make a kilo of heroin and a kilo of fentanyl is about the same, about three to four grand. A kilo of heroin will fetch sixty thousand on the streets. But because fentanyl is so much more potent, one kilo of fentanyl can be made into about twenty-four total kilos of drug product, making it far more lucrative than heroin. And a kilo of fentanyl can produce nearly seven hundred thousand pills that sell for about twenty-five bucks each.” She looked more closely at the bottle. “This is about five thousand milligrams of powder.”

“There were twenty boxes in his office. The one I opened had five bottles inside it. If all the others had the same number of bottles, what would that be worth on the street?”

Kemper mentally calculated this. “If it is fentanyl, you’re looking at nearly nine million bucks sitting in the guy’s office.”

“I wonder how many shipments are coming through there?”

“I wonder too,” said Kemper worriedly.

“Why does it strike me that the dollar amounts we’re talking about make this seem less like a small-town conspiracy and more like an international one?”

She nodded. “You just read my mind, Decker. I can tell you that the Mexican cartels are all in on fentanyl. They either import it directly from China, where it’s manufactured both illegally and by legit pharma corporations, or they buy the stuff they need to make it from the Chinese and do the lab work themselves. They sell it in powder form like in this bottle, or they cut it with heroin. But they’re also pressing millions of fentanyl pills. And the thing with fentanyl, when you put it in pills, the dealers usually have no idea it’s in there. And the consumers don’t either. But people who don’t want to snort or smoke something because they’re afraid, or it makes them feel like addicts, will take a pill because they think it’s safer and it feels more legit. You know, sort of like taking a prescription. The pills will look like an oxycodone pill, or you can cut it with Xanax or other pain pills. They’re even stamped with the dosage amount of eighty because that’s a typical dose of Oxy. ‘Shady eighties,’ they’re called on the street. As I said, they can cost about twenty-five bucks a pill and a typical addict will take twenty pills a day.”

“Five hundred bucks a day. Expensive habit.”

“I’ve arrested dealers who routinely sell a minimum of a thousand pills a day. That much is called a ‘boat’ on the street. And there are dealers who do a lot more than that.”

Decker looked at the powder. “Do you think the plan is to make pills from the powder?”

“That would be my guess. Which means this powder is going to a pill press operation probably somewhere close by. I mean, why else ship the stuff to a place like this?”

“How much space would it need?”

“You can do it in your bedroom, or the back room of a legit business. But they would need to bring in equipment. That would include a pill press, quarter- or half-ton or bigger, depending on your output requirements. A quarter-ton unit can produce three or four thousand pills an hour. And you need people to process and package the stuff. You have to be careful while handling it. I’ve had local cops go in on drug busts and touch the fentanyl without using gloves. Next thing you know they’re on the floor turning blue. It’s that dangerous.”

“Well, there are a lot of empty buildings around here. In fact, I was thinking about the empty house where your two guys were found. With a whole house, you could probably have a bunch of pill presses going. And that would explain why the power was turned on even though no one was living there.”

Kemper’s eyes widened. “You think?”

“Like I told you before, they probably had a drone flying over the street that night.”

“Yeah, but you never told me why.”

“I think maybe they were moving out equipment and then moving in the bodies. And they wanted to make sure no one was watching or coming that way. Best way to check for that was by aerial surveillance. And that’s what drones can do really well.”

“Then we need to go over the space again, to see if they left behind any trace of a pill press operation.”

“I’d check the house next door too, where I shot Brian Collins. That place is empty as well. And has the electricity turned on too.”

“And the old man who lived across the street?”

“Dan Bond might have heard something and they needed to get rid of him. They probably picked that street because it was nearly empty. In fact, only three people lived there, including him. And Fred Ross is the father of the guy with all the drugs.”

“So what’s your suggestion? Do we go in and bust Ted Ross?”

“We bust him, chances are good everybody else gets away. And you can’t get a search warrant based on what I told you, because I had no probable cause to do what I did today in his office.”

“But when he checks his stash, won’t he know a bottle is missing?”

“He might think they just shortchanged him. But we’ll need to watch him. If it looks like he’s on to it, we’ll need to pick him up.”

“Okay, I’ll get people on that. What are you going to do?”

“We know the endgame here now — drugs. Now I just have to find the rest of the pieces.”

“Do you think all the other murders are tied to this?”

“Yes, I do. But there might be something else going on here.”

“Like what?”

“As soon as I know, I’ll tell you.”

“I take it you couldn’t make bail?”

It was the next day and Decker and Jamison were sitting across from John Baron in the visitors’ room at the Baronville jail.

Decker had told Jamison what he had found in Ted Ross’s office and about his meeting with Agent Kemper.

Baron was in a white prison jumpsuit. He was unshaven and his hair was in disarray. He looked like he hadn’t slept much.

“That’s right.”

“No, that’s not right. Cindi Riley tried to post bail for you after your hearing but you refused.”

“It’s not her problem. She hired me a lawyer. She shouldn’t have to waste more of her money on me.”

“Very noble of you,” said Decker. “But I don’t think nobleness is going to get you out of this. But the truth might.”

Baron said sharply, “Meaning I’ve lied to you? I’ve admitted that.”

“I’m not necessarily talking about you. I’m speaking more generally.”

“So why are you here, then, generally speaking ?”

“It’s pretty clear to me that Bradley Costa came to town because he thought he knew where a treasure left behind by your namesake was located.”

“And I thought I made it very clear that I don’t believe that there is a treasure. It would have been found by now.”

“But let’s assume there is a treasure, just for argument’s sake.”

Baron sighed, sat back in the molded plastic chair, and said, “Okay, it’s not like I have anything else to do right now.”

“If the treasure is located on your property somewhere, it would be difficult for someone to go up there and take it, I would imagine.”

“Depends on what it was.”

“I don’t think we’re talking paper. That would degrade over time. And I think your namesake would have wanted something that would be around for the long haul.”