The Apparatus (Jason Trapp Book 5) Read online

  “You think she was embarrassed she got made?”

  Pope paused to consider the question, but not for long. “Kelly’s not like that. She’s… best I can say is she doesn’t get ruffled. Like she’s been doing the job her whole life.”

  “Must be nice,” Trapp grunted. “Then what?”

  “Beats me,” Pope growled.

  Trapp opened his mouth as a thought struck him, then closed it again as he ran the idea over the coals.

  “What?”

  “Well… Maybe she saw something.”

  “Like what?”

  “You’re telling me she’s a natural, right?”

  “One of the best I’ve ever trained,” Pope agreed. “Usually the first two years, you wouldn’t send a rookie to trail anyone more interesting than a used car salesman. You made her, okay? But most wouldn’t.”

  “So maybe she saw something,” Trapp repeated, accepting Pope’s assessment. “A real contact. A dead drop maybe, or a brush past. Something interesting enough she didn’t want me to blow the whole thing.”

  Pope came forward and ran his fingers through his thick hair, unconsciously massaging the albino spot. “What are the chances of that?”

  It was Trapp’s turn to shrug. “In Miami? One in a million. But in DC? I sure as hell wouldn’t want to make those odds.”

  “Ah, hell,” Pope groaned. “And there I was, looking forward to a weekend off for once.”

  Trapp stood, half-crouched in the confines of the back of the van. “You got your kid?”

  “Nah,” Pope replied, his expression momentarily darkening. “Katie’s with her mom this weekend.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got all the time in the world, then.” Trapp grinned, clapping his friend on the shoulder. “So I may as well get out of your hair.”

  “Where you going?” Pope groused. “If I’m stuck here, you sure as hell don’t get a free pass.”

  Trapp laughed and opened the van’s rear doors a crack. “If I could, I would. But it’s Eliza’s birthday, and we’re heading to the woods. Worth more than my life to cancel now.”

  “You really like her, huh?”

  “You bet.”

  Pope looked mournfully up from his computer monitors one last time, hand already creeping toward the mouse, as if his body already knew it wasn’t going anywhere fast. “Must be nice…”

  4

  Drug Enforcement Agency Administrator Mark Engel relaxed into the leather seat of his government-issue Chevrolet SUV as the short motorcade entered fast-moving traffic on the 395. For all that the head of his security detail was sitting in the front passenger seat, with another close protection agent behind the wheel and several more split between the chase and lead vehicles, he never felt safe in traffic.

  Leo Conway, his chief of staff, glanced over knowingly. “Carsick, huh?”

  “You could call it that, I guess,” Engel grunted as the SUV vibrated gently as the tires passed over a set of road markings. “Never liked these damn things.”

  There was nothing rational about it, he knew that. No one had ever attacked a secretary at the DEA’s Arlington headquarters before, let alone the administrator. And his close protection detail had enough quasi-military hardware between them to settle most any argument. But it was precisely because, not in spite of their presence that he felt the way he did. Just seeing them every day was a reminder of why they were needed. He was grateful, of course. But that didn’t mean he had to like it.

  Engel shook his head and pulled his gaze away from the window, and the glimpse of the rear window of the lead SUV was replaced by Leo’s face. “Where are we, then?”

  Leo nodded and dived straight into the detail. Engel liked that about him. No messing around. They spent about 15 minutes going through the previous night’s developments in Colombia, Mexico, and everywhere else in the world where a DEA agent was stationed, which meant most of it.

  It was always the same, Engel reflected. A drug seizure here, a bust there. Millions of dollars in cash found, and half a dozen more pushers and smugglers in American jail cells. Information from an informant on the one hand, and the news that a separate lead entirely hadn’t quite panned out. Sometimes he wondered why they even bothered. Every time they took down one of the bad guys, a half dozen more popped up to take their place.

  “Where are we with Carreon’s extradition?” he asked, despite the fact the cartel chief was just another name on the carousel. “The president will want an update.”

  “It’s going smoothly,” Leo replied, rolling his eyes, which Engel understood to mean that the Mexicans were jamming things up, as usual. They didn’t like handing over their citizens, even those as despicable as Fernando Carreon. “Could be any year now.”

  “Great,” his boss sighed.

  “Oh, and there’s one last thing,” Leo added as he snapped his customary leather binder closed. “Jennifer Reyes is on our patch. Shopping trip.”

  Engel frowned, trying to place the name. The most-wanted list was constantly changing, and by the time he was halfway caught up, it had usually changed entirely. It was unusual, though, for a woman’s name to grace it. “Reyes… The Crusaders Cartel chief?”

  “His wife,” Leo confirmed. “She’s down in LA with some girlfriends. Sounds like they’ve rented a second hotel suite just to keep the shopping bags. We’ve got a team watching her. But…”

  Engel raised his eyebrows. “But what?”

  “I don’t expect we’ll learn much of anything. The head honchos don’t tend to slip up. Same goes for their families. The smart ones, anyway. And we haven’t heard anything yet.”

  The DEA administrator leaned forward as the SUV began slowing on its approach to the White House, excited despite himself. Ramon Reyes, Jennifer’s husband, held the joint honor of gracing the top slot of the agency’s most wanted list, and being the one they knew the least about. They didn’t even have a photo. “Any chance we can pick her up, ask a few questions? Maybe there’s a visa issue she doesn’t know about.”

  Leo shook his head. “Not likely. She’s represented by Solomon Day. The firm already sent a high-priced suit over as a courtesy call.”

  “Sure,” Engel snorted. “Off limits, then. Dammit.”

  “Unfortunately so,” Leo agreed as the SUV rolled to a halt. The agent behind the wheel jumped out, and a second later Engel’s door opened.

  The director hung back. “Keep an eye on her, anyway. You learn anything, you come straight to me, okay?”

  “You got it, boss.”

  “Real big foxtrot, ain’t he?” Stan Butcher grunted as he pulled the nondescript Ford sedan into the curb at the head of Rodeo Drive, the high-end shopping street in Los Angeles.

  His partner, Rex Haskell, turned to him and squinted before returning his gaze to the subject in question – a Latino male around 6 foot in height, wearing a black suit that attempted to mimic a tailored cut, but fell short when confronted with his mammoth frame. The man, a bodyguard, was staring right back at them as he opened the rear door of the matching black Range Rover, an insouciant smile on his face.

  “Foxtrot?” Rex muttered with a hint of confusion before his face un-creased. “Right. A real big foxtrot.”

  “You think he’s got a record?” Stan asked, killing the Ford’s engine. He was parked on a red line but didn’t figure anyone would pick him up on it. Not with the government plates, and especially not once they got close enough to see the stylish navy-blue windbreakers, complete with DEA lettering in yellow. It wasn’t exactly subtle.

  That was kind of the point.

  “No way, José,” Rex replied with an irritable shake of the head. More of a twitch, really. “Reyes wouldn’t send anyone on our books. And he’d know, right?”

  “Guess so,” came Stan’s reply.

  He settled back into the driver’s seat. With the engine off, and the AC with it, the heat of the noon sun was already building inside the car. He grimaced as a fold of skin got pinched between his belt and the holst
er of his service weapon and readjusted his frame to compensate. “But it’s a shame.”

  “You got that right,” Rex agreed.

  The two agents were of similar height and build, and both had recently requalified at the range. No one was expecting trouble, but then again, no one ever did. The local cops knew something was going on down here and were on call if needed. But Stan doubted they would be.

  He let out a whistle. “She’s easy on the eye, huh?”

  Rex’s gaze dropped to a folder on his lap. “That’s the wife?”

  “Think so.”

  “She’s what, 23?”

  “Not even. Birthday’s next month.”

  His partner shook his head as he watched a lithe woman wearing stiletto heels reach back into the Range Rover and retrieve a purse that probably cost half a month’s worth of his salary. “I wonder what he sees in her.”

  That caused Stan to chuckle. He nodded in knowing agreement, watching Jennifer Reyes out of the corner of his eye but focusing the bulk of his attention on the three bodyguards accompanying the Real Big Foxtrot. They were barely more diminutive in size, and each moved with a kind of casual arrogance that suggested they thought they owned these streets.

  “Real shame,” he murmured again underneath his breath, not knowing quite why he said it.

  The wife was accompanied by a couple of girlfriends, one in leather pants and another in a miniskirt that didn’t go very far south of her waist, and neither left much to the imagination. The two agents watched as another bodyguard exited the marble archway entrance to the Versace store and nodded to the RBF, who in turn ushered the three women inside.

  Between the slightly darkened window glass and the sun reflecting overhead, it was difficult to make out precisely what was going on inside, but Stan thought he saw a trio of champagne flutes suddenly appear in the women’s hands before they disappeared between the clothes racks.

  “Reckon you could take him?” Rex murmured, unconsciously drumming the middle and index fingers of his right hand against his own holster. “The big one, I mean.”

  “That doesn’t narrow it down much,” Stan grunted. “You want the truth?”

  “I’m asking.”

  “I wouldn’t go near him if you doubled my salary. Not unless I had a company of Marines backing me up. And even then, I don’t know. I got a kid at home now, man. Priorities.”

  “You new parents are all the same.” Rex grinned. “Believe me, you get five years in, you’ll be hoping someone takes a swing at you and lands you a week in a hospital bed with some sexy nurse feeding you dinner through a straw. Better than changing diapers and taking out the trash, I’ll tell you.”

  Stan murmured his agreement but never took his eyes off the four men flanking the store’s exit.

  Don’t tempt fate.

  Jennifer Reyes still didn’t really believe that this was real life. She leaned against a pillar and smiled as her two best friends, Silvia and Adriana, danced through a fashion store that was for the time set aside as their own personal fitting room, and cackled with unbridled glee.

  They would do this half a dozen more times today, she knew, switching the fashion label every time. She wondered whether it would get old.

  Not today.

  It wasn’t healthy – couldn’t be healthy – to withdraw so frequently into these bouts of reflective solipsism. Jennifer knew that. And yet she couldn’t help it. Her station in life had risen so far so fast that sometimes it gave her whiplash. Only two years earlier, she’d still lived under her parents’ roof in Culiacán, a building with far fewer rooms than offspring to occupy them. She’d worked through the night, from dusk till dawn, as a dancer in one of the city’s more exclusive clubs.

  It was hard work, and the pay was unimpressive, but the tips more than made up for that shortcoming. The other girls made more, but only by working smarter. Jennifer Diaz, at the time, was proud of her legs but had far too much pride to make a living on her back. The rest of them laughed at her, but she had a plan for how the rest of her life would unfold and no intention of compromising herself for the sake of a little easy cash.

  The path she was on already would get her to where she wanted to be. A better life for her parents. Then college. Maybe it would get her there a little slower, but that was a price worth paying.

  And then she’d met Ramon.

  Well, met wasn’t exactly the operative word. She was delivered to him by one of his men, a sicario who understood well his master’s tastes. And Jennifer knew better than to refuse a request from a man like Ramon Reyes. In Culiacán, the word of the cartels was law. You didn’t make an enemy of a man like that.

  Just two years. And a marriage. And maybe even a child, in a future that wasn’t too far away.

  She was too young for childbirth. Not physically, of course, nor even by the standards of most women in her country. But the idea of so prematurely embracing motherhood did not align with her chosen path.

  But now you have no choice.

  “Jennifer!”

  She looked up and saw Silvia beckoning her over, pale droplets of champagne spilling free of her flute and sailing through the air like tiny glittering fireflies.

  “I’m coming.” She smiled. “I just needed a moment. It’s going to be a long day.”

  And though she could not yet know it, Jennifer Reyes was right.

  “Who’s that?” Stan said, squinting and shielding his eyes from the sun as a dark figure resolved at the far end of Rodeo Drive, bracketed by two thin strips of shadow thrown off by para-palm trees towering overhead.

  “A real Beverly Hills cop,” Rex chuckled before his expression darkened. “I guess he didn’t get the memo.”

  “It’s fine, I guess.” Stan shrugged. “Not like the druggies don’t know we are watching them.”

  “I guess,” Rex replied, echoing his partner’s words, if not his certainty.

  “You reckon he’s itching to give us a parking ticket?” Stan said, lowering the sun shield so he could see better.

  “I figure he clocks the government plates and walks right on by.” Rex shrugged, returning his attention to the Versace storefront. “If he knows what’s good for him, anyway. Doesn’t look like no rookie, so I’m betting we’re fine.”

  “You’re probably right,” Stan agreed. “I’ll keep an eye on him, anyway.”

  He did so as Rex grunted an amiable response. The cop walked slowly down the street toward them, his right hand resting casually on his gun belt. He stopped a couple times in the shadow of a storefront, taking advantage of the shelter from the sun. Stan began to relax. The police officer – Rex was right, he looked to be in his mid-thirties – couldn’t have failed to notice the presence of their sedan, and yet he’d made no beeline toward them. He was probably just walking his ordinary beat. Maybe he’d missed the morning’s briefing on their surveillance op.

  Must be that, he figured.

  Still, he kept his eye on the man as he closed within 20 feet, then 10, then just five. Until the very last moment, it appeared as though he was just going to stroll right on by.

  And then he turned, frowning beneath a BHPD baseball cap that shielded his face from the sun, and motioned at Stan to lower his window.

  “Dammit,” Stan hissed.

  “What is it?” Rex said, turning back. “Ah. Want me to call it in, get his boss on the line?”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll get rid of him,” Stan grumbled, reaching for the window button with one hand and his credentials with the other.

  “You two gentlemen know you can’t park here, right?” the cop said as the window lowered. He was looking down at the ground now, and Stan saw that he was pointing at it, also. “That line means no parking. I don’t care who you’re waiting for.”

  “Look up, Officer,” Stan said curtly, holding up his credentials in full view.

  “What you got there?” the cop replied amiably. He started reaching for the badge.

  Did someone drop you on your head as a
baby? Stan thought, though he resisted the urge to say it. Instead he bottled up the emotion, holding on to it for later, when he would be able to write up a satisfying complaint about the officer’s behavior.

  Still, his attention was drawn toward the hand reaching in through the window – the officer’s left. Not what was happening with his right.

  “I’m a federal agent, Officer,” Stan said tautly, “and if you have any desire to hold on to your job, I suggest you get –”

  “I don’t give a fuck who you are,” said the cop. “Put your hands on the dash where I can see them.”

  “What the hell’s going on?” Rex said, turning and half reaching for his holstered weapon before he stopped dead, noticing for the first time the officer’s weapon.

  “You know how it goes. Don’t do anything stupid. I don’t got no desire to see either of you die today. We’re not here to kill Americans. You just keep nice and quiet, and this will be over before you know it.”

  Stan gulped, his throat suddenly bone dry. “What will?”

  And that’s when the gunfire started.

  Jennifer had her eyes on Adriana when the first round splintered through the designer store’s plate glass windows. Her friend had her arm looped around the upright pole of a display rack and was demonstrating a slightly alcohol-impaired balletic spin as she and Silvia raised their flutes in a show of admiration.

  So when the sheet glass cracked, then collapsed in a waterfall of glittering shards, her mind started filling in the dots and drew a separate picture entirely. For a full second she thought that Adriana had somehow brought the rail toppling down with her. Her brain was so committed to the accidental self-deception that she was already bending over in preparation to help her up when the store assistants began screaming in terror.

  It was only then that Jennifer turned and watched as all four of the men who Ramon had sent to protect her fell, one by one, under a hail of gunfire. She was not scared, at least not yet, but only because this could not be happening. It simply did not compute.