Andrew Gross - The Blue Zone

Maybe she did know what the needle looked like after all.

Phil Cavetti had been inside the FBI’s headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue many times.

Just never to the tenth floor.

And flanked by his boss at the U.S. Marshals Service and an FBI liaison as the private elevator came to a stop, the rolling in his stomach reminded him he wasn’t exactly thrilled that his initial visit there had been called for ten that night.

The doors opened to a security station with two armed soldiers on guard. The FBI escort nodded at them and led the group past a large bullpen of workstations, home to the Bureau’s elite analysts and staff, then down a hall of glass-paneled offices bearing the names of some of the most powerful in law enforcement.

The door to the corner office was open, the only one with a light still on inside. Cavetti cleared his throat and straightened his tie. The door read DEPUTY DIRECTOR, NARCOTICS AND ORGANIZED CRIME.

He could see the dome of the U.S. Capitol lit up through the office window.

Ted Cummings was on the phone behind his glass-topped desk, his tie loose, his expression not exactly pleased. He waved Cavetti and his boss, Calvin White, to a couch across from the desk. The office was large. An American flag hung in one corner. Behind the desk, photos of the deputy director with the president and other prominent government officials, and the FBI seal. Someone else was already seated on the couch. Someone Cavetti had no trouble recognizing. He realized he was way above his pay grade. The FBI man who had walked them up stepped out and shut the door.

“Phil, you know Hal Roach,” Cal White introduced him. The white-haired man leaned forward and shook Cavetti’s hand.

Roach was assistant attorney general of the United States.

Way, way above his pay grade.

“All right.” The deputy director clicked off his phone. He came over and sank into a leather chair and sighed, as if he wasn’t exactly thrilled to be here and not at home with his wife and children-not to mention having one of the highest-ranking Justice officials in his office as well. Grunting, he tossed a file onto a coffee table in front of the couch, and the contents slid out.

They were photos of Margaret Seymour’s torture and execution.

Cummings looked at White with a peremptory sigh. “ Cal, I believe the subject of these photos is familiar to you? Any thoughts on just who she was working with?”

White cleared his throat, glancing toward Cavetti. “Phil…”

Cavetti didn’t need to be reminded that what he said in the next few moments could determine the rest of his career.

“Frank Gefferelli, Corky Chiodo,” he said, “part of the Corelli family. Ramón Quintero, from the Corrados. Jeffrey Atkins, you may remember he was a whistle-blowing attorney in the Aafco fraud?”

The deputy director shut his eyes and nodded disgustedly.

Cavetti wet his lips and held his breath, then exhaled. “Bachelor Number One.”

He used the code name. The one everybody that high up in law enforcement knew. If the initial names had caused the temperature to rise, Cavetti knew, this one would blow the fucking generator.

A stunned silence fell over the room. Everyone stared at him. Cummings’s eyes shifted to White’s in exasperation, then over to the assistant attorney general.

“Bachelor Number One.” The deputy director nodded gravely. “ Cute .”

For a second, everyone seemed to ponder the implications of having the identity of the most important narcotics informant in U.S. custody divulged. Someone who for years had been aiding convictions against the Mercado family. Because he had spent the car ride over pondering the very same question, Cavetti flashed instead to the Northern Peninsula of Michigan, where he knew, most likely, he would be finishing out his career.

“Gentlemen.” The assistant attorney general leaned forward. “I think we’ve all put in enough time in this game to recognize what a total fucking disaster looks like when it hits you in the face. Do you know what the implications would be if those were the whereabouts Agent Seymour happened to divulge?”

“We’re not entirely sure Agent Seymour’s murder was actually connected to this.” Cal White, the head of the U.S. Marshals Service, was clearly trying to posture.

“And I’m not Shaquille O’Neal.” The FBI director glowered. “But you’re here-”

“Yes.” The head of the WITSEC Program nodded glumly. “We’re here.”

“So I think the three of us have to make a commitment,” the deputy director said. “This breach ends right here. This other missing guy, this ‘MIDAS’ figure”-he glanced at a sheet of paper-“who you think had some play in this, Benjamin Raab-just where the hell is he ?”

“He’s gone,” Cavetti admitted, his boss helplessly looking on. “He’s in what we call the Blue Zone. Disappeared. We have his family under watch now.”

“The Blue Zone.” The deputy director’s gaze seemed to burn right through him. “That’s what? WITSEC-speak for you basically have no fucking idea?” He looked around the room, angry, then sighed. “Okay, so much for Bachelor Number Two, what about Bachelor Number One? I assume you have him under wraps and moved?”

“That’s why we’re here.” Calvin White grew pale and cleared his throat. “He’s in the Blue Zone, too.”

U.S. Marshal Freddie Oliva had been a WITSEC agent for six years. He’d grown up in the Bronx, where his father worked as a switchman for the MTA. He’d gone to John Jay College of Criminology, received a degree in prelaw, and maybe he’d go for the bar one day, but right now there was a kid on the way and bills to take care of, and this was a whole lot closer to the action than sitting in some room with an audio plug in his ear listening to Homeland Security chatter.

Deputy Marshal Oliva liked working for the feds. Most of these dudes, they were pretty much FBI wannabes who couldn’t make it into the program at Quantico. He had it all over them. Sometimes he did guard duty at the courts or had to accompany some Mafia honcho on the trip to trial. Or to a new location. He got to talk to these goombahs, got to know some pretty well. Maybe one day he’d write a book.

What Freddie didn’t like one bit was babysitting duty. An intern could sit here and observe that pooch taking a pee. But after what happened on the river, he’d be all over this chick like grease on bacon. Anyway, it’d be done soon enough. That dude Raab would make a mistake, show up somewhere. They’d nab him and pull her protection. He’d be back to his regular job.

“ Oliva ,” a voice suddenly crackled in his earphone, “the subject’s coming down the elevator now.”

Subject… He snorted cynically and rolled his eyes. The “subject” wasn’t some crazy-assed hit man they were hiding for trial. Or some twenty-to-lifer who blew jail and was on the run.

Subject was a twenty-three-year-old biologist with a dog who had to pee.

“Got it,” he grunted back. Oliva cracked the car door and stretched his muscles. He could use a little exercise. Sitting in this car all day was making him stiff as a goddamned board.

A few moments later, the building door opened and the “subject” stepped out, with Fido, who had his eyeballs fixed on the curb.

Oliva couldn’t believe he actually got paid for this job.

“Don’t you ever call it a day?” Kate Raab came up to him, the dog pulling her along on his leash.

“You go, I go.” Oliva winked. “You know that, mama. That’s the drill now.”

“And does the drill include going poop?” Kate stared at him. She had on nice-fitting jeans and a quilted jacket, a knapsack over her back, and Freddie found himself thinking that if he had ever had a biology teacher who looked like this, he would’ve spent a lot more time in the lab than on the ball field. She held out a plastic bag. “Here, Oliva, it’ll make you feel useful.”