Джеймс Паттерсон - Ambush

Alonzo said, “I had quite a full life before God set me on the right path. I’m trying to use my experience in a different way, dealing with everyday people.”

“What motivated you to join the Church?”

Now Seamus interrupted. “Michael, my boy, those aren’t the kind of questions we ask people who’ve come into the Church. No one cares that I used to own a bar.”

I said, “No one would know if you didn’t tell people every ten minutes.”

Before he could answer with a sarcastic comment, Juliana stepped into the room and said, “Mary Catherine says dinner will be ready in about ten minutes.”

Father Alonzo greeted Juliana and tried to make conversation, asking her, “Have you given any thought about where you want to go to college?”

She avoided looking at me when she answered. “I have a lot of options on the table right now. I’ll start to narrow them down near Christmas.” She backed out of the room before I could comment.

Alonzo tried again, asking me, “So have you and Mary Catherine picked a date?”

I looked down at the tile and just shook my head. “You ever been married, Alonzo? I mean, before your marriage to the Church?”

He said, “I was engaged once.”

“What happened?”

“The usual. Who knows? There are thousands of possible answers. The easiest explanation is that she fell in love with another man. A man who could provide her with things I couldn’t. But now I have the Church.”

Seamus clapped him on the shoulder and said, “And you’ve got me.”

Alonzo smiled and said, “Oh, joy.”

That was the hardest I had laughed in months.

The next day at the office, I wasted no time, walking up to Harry Grissom and telling him some of what I had deduced about the string of killings. These weren’t business-as-usual drug rip-offs and grocery store robberies. There was a pattern to it — I just hadn’t figured out what that pattern was. I needed to keep digging and wanted Grissom’s blessing to start rummaging through old homicide cases.

He pulled me over to a corner near a window where no one in the squad bay would hear us. Then he looked at me with those droopy eyes and said, “What’ve you got?”

I’d known this hardened cop for too long not to come right to the point. “I think the ambush was part of a bigger drug war that’s going on. I don’t know why anyone would want me or Antrole dead, but the way our original suspect was murdered and the tip that came in to us makes it look like it was a setup from the very beginning.”

Grissom just nodded as he considered it.

“I’ve also found two murders of Canadian nationals here in the city in the last week. Both victims had a past involving narcotics and were known to be associated with the Canadian mob. I have intel from a couple of sources that says the Canadians are clashing with a Mexican cartel over control of the synthetic drug market.”

The lieutenant interrupted me. “Are you saying there’s a drug war involving Canadians?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“That will be one of the quietest, most polite drug wars in history.” He took a moment to think, then said, “You can keep on your assignment, trying to discover patterns in these homicides. But I don’t want you to start coming up with crazy conspiracy theories. You know as well as I do that the majority of the murders in New York are somehow related to drugs. I want to find Antrole’s killer just as badly as you do. But I don’t want you raising such a fuss that someone asks why you aren’t assigned any current homicides. Is that clear?”

“Crystal.”

“Then I expect you to get on with your assignment. If that assignment happens to lead to viable suspects in Antrole’s murder, then everyone is happy. If not, I wasted my best detective on a foolish assignment. I’ve been accused of worse.”

I watched Grissom as he padded back to his office. I often wondered if he tried to be inspiring or just had a way about him that pushed you to your limits. Suddenly I felt energy. I needed to line up some leads and feel like I was doing something.

That’s how a cop should always feel.

Alex enjoyed the ride from the ranch up to Bogotá. She and the girls sang songs, then played silly games like “I spy” and “I’m thinking of an animal.” That was Gabriela’s favorite game because she loved animals and it was just twenty yes-or-no questions. Her sister was nice and usually picked a simple animal that Gabby could identify.

Alex’s mother laid a guilt trip on her about being away so much. Alex didn’t bring up the fact that she worked hard to pay the bills, which included her mother’s comfortable condo in the suburbs of Bogotá.

That was all just a prelude for what the real purpose of the day was. She left the girls at her mother’s condo for an hour and drove to Alcalá Park, between the highway and 19th Road.

It was a quiet park with enough trees to make finding a shady spot to sit easy. It also wasn’t a particularly busy park during the week.

As soon as she entered the park, she saw the man she needed to speak to sitting on a bench as far away from the parking lot as possible. She casually strolled toward him so she wouldn’t draw attention to herself and to let the man know she was in no hurry. He had an inflated view of himself. Many men in his position did.

Alex walked past him, feeling his eyes all over her, then sat on the far end of the bench. She didn’t say anything.

He was a well-dressed, extremely handsome thirty-five-year-old with a trim body. His Tommy Hilfiger shirt was clearly his attempt to look casual, but he looked like someone out of a catalog. She would’ve used him in an ad that called for a father and son.

The man simply said, “Alex, nice to see you. I occasionally forget that you could be a model as well as a photographer.”

She took a moment and said, “What brings you all the way from Mexico City?”

“Business. Always business. As long as Colombia controls the transportation and access to our product, I will make a dozen trips a year to your lovely country.”

Alex couldn’t get a sense of what Oscar was thinking. She suspected he was annoyed that she had not completed her contracts in New York. But he showed no sign of it. A wealthy man like him, who enjoyed getting his hands dirty occasionally, knew how to hide his emotions.

Finally Oscar said, “Some of the Canadians on your list are back in New York. And Detective Michael Bennett is alive. I believe my text to you covered that fully.”

“Yes. And I’ve considered the contract carefully. Isn’t it dangerous for your operation to kill a New York City detective?”

“This has more of a personal element in it.”

“Such as?”

“Does it matter? You’ve already been paid half up front to eliminate him. You need a reason to collect the other half?”

Alex gave him a careful smile. “I was just curious. It won’t be an easy job to complete. Bennett has proved quite resourceful.”

Oscar slowly bobbed his head. “Don’t get me wrong — I agree with you. But I am only a cog in a big organization. I am the liaison to you and several others. But I heard from some of my associates that Detective Bennett shot and killed a young man in a library not too long ago.”

“Sometimes police have to do things like that.”

“But this young man worked for us. His mother is related to someone higher up in the cartel. Apparently she asked for us to deal with the cop who shot her son, Diego. It’s really a matter of honor. But none of that should concern you. All you need to worry about is that Bennett needs to die. The sooner the better.”