James Swain - Bad News Travels

“Put your hands in the air,” the fake sheriff said.

“Don’t tell me — you’re one of them,” Sykes said.

“I sure am. But I did take acting classes in college. They come in handy.”

The fake sheriff frisked him, and took away his sidearm and the backup gun he wore on his ankle. He decided to play stupid, and see where it got him.

“Would you folks mind telling me what this is all about?” Sykes said.

Daniels stepped forward. “Don’t you know? You’re under arrest.”

“For what? Not paying my property taxes on time?”

“For starters, lying to an FBI agent multiple times.”

“I was completely honest with you,” he lied.

Her forefinger jabbed him in the chest. The look in her eyes made him swallow hard. “You have no friends here,” she said.

The cellblock resembled a steel cage, with cells lining the two walls, a small common area with a badly pocked table, and a pair of benches. The table and benches were screwed to the floor so the inmates couldn’t break them apart, and turn them into weapons. There was no air conditioning, the air still and warm.

Sykes was made to sit on a bench. The FBI agents and Lancaster stood on the other side of the picnic table, while the fake sheriff guarded the door. Sykes was still annoyed that he hadn’t seen through the guy’s disguise. He would turn fifty-five soon, and wondered if he was starting to lose his edge.

One of the FBI agents picked up a cardboard box from the floor, and placed it on the picnic table. Daniels reached into the box and removed a handful of cell phones, which she placed in a row on the table. She did this until the box was empty.

Sykes felt sweat trickle down his back. These were the burners that he’d used to track Dalton over the past twelve months. He guessed the FBI had arrested Dalton, and during a search found the burners. It probably hadn’t been very hard for the FBI to contact the people at Callyo, and trace the burners back to him.

“Recognize these?” Daniels asked.

“Never seen them before,” he lied.

A second cardboard box was taken off the floor, and put on the table. Daniels removed reams of printed paper as thick as a phone book, and slapped them down in front of him.

“How about this?” she asked.

Sykes leafed through the papers. It was a transcript of the data that Callyo had collected on Dalton, and included every phone call, text, and email, along with the date, time, and his geographical location when he made the communication. Sykes’s name was on the cover page as the point person of the operation. He was cooked.

“Yeah, I recognize these papers,” the detective said.

“This is your operation, yes?” Daniels said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’ve been monitoring Dalton’s activities for the past year, correct?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Good. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

Sykes took a deep breath, waiting. He expected Daniels to pull out his bank records, and slap them on the table. Those records would be the knockout punch, and prove how deep he’d gotten himself into this mess. He’d let greed get the best of him, and now he was going to pay for it.

But Daniels didn’t do that. Instead, she took out a small notepad, and a pen, in preparation for questioning him. The FBI didn’t use tape recorders during formal interrogations for reasons he’d never completely understood. It was old school, and not with the times.

“I’m going to ask you some questions,” Daniels said. “How you answer them will determine what we do with you. Am I making myself clear?”

His mind raced. The FBI hadn’t bothered to search his house. If they had, they would have discovered his bank records, and realized what was going on. In their haste to arrest him, they’d failed to cover all their bases, and as a result, they were still partially in the dark. They would eventually find out what he’d done, but it might take a while.

Daniels looked tired and run-down. The woman had been through a lot. If he helped her, she might cut him some slack. He needed to fall on his sword, and confess. He’d throw the others under the bus, and try not to implicate himself.

It was the only shot he had, and he was going to take it.

“Loud and clear,” Sykes said.

“Good. But know this. If I catch you telling a lie, I’ll throw your ass in jail so fast it will make your nose bleed,” Daniels said.

“I won’t lie,” he lied.

Daniels placed a bottled water on the table. She wondered if Sykes had figured out why they’d brought him to the cellblock to conduct their questioning, as opposed to the FBI’s Jacksonville office, or the police station.

“That’s for you,” she said.

Sykes took a long swallow. The cellblock was heating up, and he looked like he was melting. The jail wasn’t air conditioned, and there was little in the way of cross-ventilation. It was hard to imagine living under these conditions.

“Are you ready to start?” she asked.

Sykes nodded.

“Tell us the circumstances leading up to your decision to monitor Dalton. Start from the beginning, and don’t leave anything out.”

“Can I take my jacket off? I’m burning up.”

“Go ahead.”

The detective rose from the bench, and removed his sports jacket. Jon stood in the corner, watching the detective’s every move. Sykes avoided his gaze, and sat back down.

“Okay, so here’s what happened,” Sykes said. “Because Saint Augustine is a tourist town, we’re vulnerable to a certain breed of criminals, like con men and prostitutes. We employ two undercover cops whose sole job is to be on the lookout for these people. They hit the bars at night, and know people in the hospitality business, who tend to be a pretty good source of information.”

“Their names,” Daniels said.

Sykes gave her the names, then resumed. “About a year ago, my guys started to see these hot young Latin women in the bars, hitting on older guys. They saw these women take older guys home for the night, which of course got them suspicious.”

“Did you arrest them for prostitution?” Daniels asked.

“We did not. No money was changing hands, at least not in public. We assumed the transaction was taking place in a hotel room. Turns out, that wasn’t the case either. My guys had beers with one of these Romeos, and learned that he hadn’t paid for the sex, which he claimed was pretty wild.”

“Sounds like a set-up.”

“It was a set-up. These ladies had a friend, a young Russian woman who worked as a tour guide, who was making the introductions. ”

“Her name.”

“Katya.”

“So Katya was pimping these Latin women.”

“That’s correct. Folks in town liked Katya, so no one was suspicious.”

Daniels knew bullshit when she heard it, and she slapped the table. “Young women don’t have sex with strange men unless they’re getting something in return. Don’t play us for fools, Detective.”

“I’m not playing anyone,” Sykes said defensively. “People liked Katya because she was dating your father. It had a halo effect, if you know what I mean.”

Daniels’s cheeks burned. Her father had let himself be used in more ways than one. “You’re saying their relationship paved the way for Katya to work her scam.”

“That’s right. Your father was used. A month later, my undercover guys heard a rumor. Our Romeos were being blackmailed by two Russian brothers named Sokolov. They had videos that had been secretly taken at Katya’s house with the Latin girls. The Russians were threatening to destroy these men’s reputations if they didn’t pay.”

“How big were the ransoms?”

“Hundreds of thousands of dollars.”