David Baldacci - Daylight

“So, Jeff Sands?”

Puller nodded and sat on the bed. “His grandfather is one of the most powerful men in the country. But his son-in-law has apparently written Jeff off and has a new family to focus on.”

“So he might be a drug dealer in addition to being a user? How has that not hit the news?”

“I did some research on it. Sands is one of sixteen grandchildren and he has a different last name. And from what I could gather, not many people are in the loop on this. And maybe folks don’t consider it newsworthy. I mean, Sands’s dad was the absent parent. I can’t believe many people will ding Peter Driscoll because one of his many grandchildren turned out bad. He raised his own kids and they all seemed to have turned out okay. It’s not exactly his responsibility to look after another generation.”

“Okay, that certainly makes sense. So what do we do?”

“I’ve got Sands’s address. We set up surveillance and see what we see.”

“And why not go directly to question him?”

“No. I want to reconnoiter this sucker a little bit first.”

“The federal government and the Trenton police have come down on us like a ton of bricks. I can’t see how Jeff Sands could have made that happen. But I can see someone like Peter Driscoll having a hand in that.”

“I can’t answer that one way or another. I hope to be able to shortly.”

“But people have been killed. Sheila Weathers and Jerome Blake and Ed McElroy. Call me hopelessly naïve, but I also can’t believe that a U.S. senator would be involved in that.” When he didn’t answer she said, “Puller?”

“I’m trying to decide if you’re hopelessly naïve or I’m a confirmed cynic.”

“But you think it’s possible he’s involved somehow?”

“I think there’s so much money in politics today that anything is possible. Guys like Driscoll are a hot commodity, Atlee. They can be worth billions or even trillions of dollars to certain folks.” He paused. “What do you think someone would do for a trillion bucks?”

“Anything,” she said. “And looking at it that way I guess we’re fortunate that only three people are dead.”

“But I think that number is going to go up.”

“Including you and me? It’s already been a close call for us both, you especially.”

“From the minute we put on the shield—”

“—we accepted that possibility,” Pine finished for him.

“But, again, this is not your case, Atlee. You really should just focus on finding your sister.”

“Very chivalrous of you to give me such an easy out.”

“Which you’re not going to take?”

“My answer is the same as the last time you asked. Let’s go eat. You’re not the only one who’s hungry.”

CHAPTER

42

IT WAS THE HOUR OF NIGHT when most people were already in bed. A marine fog had rolled in off the Hudson and been met by a twin mist burning off the East River. They met in the middle of Manhattan like secret lovers on a nighttime tryst.

Pine was fully dressed as she gazed out the bedroom window and saw nothing. Any activity going on at street level ten floors below was currently invisible to her.

She checked her main weapon and her Beretta for the fourth and final time. She moved down to Blum’s bedroom door and listened for a few moments until she heard the woman’s gentle snores. Puller was waiting for her in the front room. He was dressed all in black, and she noted the bulges along his waistline where his twin M11s sat.

Puller took out his phone and scrolled through some screens. “I’ve had a team of CID agents up here tracking Sands all day and night.”

“What has he been doing?”

“Apparently, the twin workloads of being a student at Georgetown and operating a drug ring got to be too much for him. He’s taking some time off from academia to fatten his wallet and expand his market share.”

“So it’s confirmed that he’s dealing?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Have we ruled out his father being a partner in all this?” she asked as they stepped into the elevator car and headed down.

“Not definitively, but from all we could ascertain the guy is legit rich. And he’s a prick for a father, at least to Sands. So I doubt father and son are in this together.”

A taxi dropped them three blocks from their destination in Brooklyn.

“It’s a club where Sands hangs out,” explained Puller.

“What kind of a club?”

“An expensive one.”

“You want front or back?” she asked.

“Up to you.”

Pine headed to the back.

She settled in behind a line of dumpsters about twenty yards from the rear exit of the place that was called, simply, the Club.

Now that’s either really lazy or really ingenious , thought Pine.

Puller had emailed her a picture of Sands. He was handsome, with an arrogant glaze to his features. He looked like a child of privilege to Pine. But then again, his mother had died while he was a child and his father had abandoned him. Pine could relate to that, but it didn’t absolve the man from the consequences of being a drug dealer.

A light rain began to fall, and Pine moved back so that she was under the cover of an overhang. She pulled up the collar on her jacket and kept her gaze on the back door of the Club. She stiffened at one A.M. when the door opened and two men stumbled out. But neither one was Sands. They quickly moved off, picking up their pace as the rain came down harder.

Twenty minutes more passed, and Pine was wondering whether this stakeout would turn out to be a bust when the door opened once more. She stiffened and then relaxed as the woman appeared. She looked to be in her twenties, short, voluptuous, and wearing barely anything at all.

A moment later Pine came to rigid attention as the man appeared in the doorway and looked around. Jeff Sands then stepped out, smiled, and coiled his hands around the woman. His hands dipped to her buttocks and took up purchase there. They kissed and he maneuvered her back against the wall.

Pine wasn’t sure she wanted to see what was coming next, until the two men appeared from a darkened corner of the rear of the building. The woman darted away, and it was just Sands and the two gents with pistols pointed at his handsome and now terrified face. He put his hands up and backed away. She could see him pleading with the gunmen, even as she knew these pleas would not cut it. She had already texted a one-word alert to Puller. She slipped out both pistols and moved forward. Her Glock was aimed at one assailant, her Beretta at the other.

They had backed Sands up to the same wall as he had the woman.

She would normally call out her presence and FBI authority, but this situation did not ideally allow for it. Rushing silently forward, she clubbed the first man on the back of the head with the butt of her pistol; he dropped to the ground with a yell. The other man whipped around, his gun leveled at her chest. The next moment he was on the ground after being slammed there by Puller, who had rounded the corner and hit the fellow with a full head of steam.

They quickly disarmed the men and then ordered them to get up.

The man Pine had clubbed had blood streaming down his face. “I need a doctor,” he screamed.

“What you need,” said Puller, holding out his shield, “is to start answering questions. Beginning with why you were just about to kill this man.”

Sands had collapsed against the wall and was panting with tears in his eyes.

“We weren’t going to kill him,” said the other man, rubbing a bruise on his cheek where it had slammed into the pavement. “We were going to talk to him about some delinquent bills.”

“And you do that with guns?” said Pine.

“Mr. Sands usually needs some persuading.”