Enigma (FBI Thriller 21)

Manta Ray laughed, tut-tutted. “Are you conspiring with a prisoner, Mr. Federal Marshal? You want a share to fill out your retirement?”

Otter gave another nervous laugh, said, “Of course he isn’t, but I bet you could still get less time if you told the FBI where you hid all of it. Why haven’t you?”

“Ah, lad, an excellent question. Of course there’s an answer, there’s always an answer. Maybe you’ll find out soon enough.” His Irish was riding high, so thick it was like he’d left Ireland the week before.

Chan looked in his rearview, saw Manta Ray had leaned back against the van wall and closed his eyes. Actually, he’d wondered about that, too. Why hold on to the loot if it was going to cost him thirty years in prison?

Benz said, “In thirty years, I’ll probably be underground. But thirty years is a long time, a very long time. I plan to spend it fishing the Great Lakes and playing a lot of golf courses. I’ll be free to do what I want when I want. I could have sex every night until I croak, what with Viagra. But you? Sorry, buddy, you’re screwed.”

Chan would have told anyone but Benz to shut up by now, but he didn’t want to start an argument, didn’t want Manta Ray to hear that. So he decided to mind his own, maybe listen to the Pilots again and chair-dance some more. But first, right now, he couldn’t help but listen.

Manta Ray said, “You think I’m going to go without sex for thirty years?” He laughed, only this time, his laugh was nasty, with an edge that made Chan’s skin crawl. “We’ll see about that, won’t we?”

Silence again. This time it lasted.

They had less than an hour before they reached Lee Penitentiary, the high-security federal prison in Pennington Gap, Virginia. Chan couldn’t wait to hand Manta Ray over to the prison staff. He looked in the rearview, saw Benz reading a novel, Otter staring through the mesh cage out the front of the van.

Finally, Chan saw a flash of the huge white concrete penitentiary tower in the distance through a small gap between two low hills. Nearly there. He turned the big black Chevy van off the interstate onto the narrow two-lane road that led to Lee. Only two miles to go. Chan glanced into his rearview, saw Manta Ray was awake, leaning forward, focused. On what? His dark eyes dominated a strong high-cheekboned face that was movie-star good-looking, no doubt about that. But Chan could see that someone would forget the good looks, if he looked long enough into Manta Ray’s eyes and saw the blackness behind them. It looked to Chan like his lips were moving, like he was chanting silently. Was he meditating or trying to cast some kind of a curse? Chan felt a stab of fear, shook his head at himself. Manta Ray was a seriously scary man, and he’d seen a lot of scary in his ten years as a U.S. marshal.

Chan drove carefully as the road narrowed over a short bridge, the stream beneath running high because of the recent heavy rains. Once off the bridge, the oaks and maples grew so lush they nearly met over the road. It was beautiful country, endless rolling hills dotted with small towns, cattle, sheep, an occasional white house, and more trees than you’d care to count. That day the sky was a clear shining blue, the air sweet and warm. He’d never minded the prisoner runs to Lee—except maybe this one. He didn’t want to think about it, but he was uncomfortable in the same van with this prisoner. He was a bottomless pit of mean covered with a coat of slippery charm. He wanted this run over.

Chan smoothly followed a bend in the road when he saw a motorcycle on its side across both lanes, the rider down beside it, unmoving. He braked, threw the steering wheel over just as a man burst from the trees and ran toward them, dressed in commando black, mask, and army boots. A dark metal canister shot through his open driver’s-side window, an inch from Chan’s face, and slammed against the passenger door.

A flash bang.

Chan only had an instant to throw the van into reverse and lay on the gas before a ferocious bright light blinded him and an incredible blast in the enclosed space deafened him. The whole van shook with the force of the concussion. It knocked him senseless for a moment. When his brain was working again, his world was spinning and his body bowed forward in pain. He lost control. The van shot backward off the road, its rear end slamming hard into an oak, throwing Chan sideways. As his head lashed back, the airbag exploded in his face.

He heard Otter and Benz yelling, moving around. Then he heard the back window shatter under a rain of bullets, and heard another flash bang crash into the van. He heard Otter yell, heard another huge explosion, then he heard groans. At least Manta Ray wasn’t going anywhere in his three-piece prisoner’s suit, his feet shackled to the floor of the van.

Only Chan could get them out of here. He pushed away the airbag and swiped his shirtsleeve over his tearing eyes, trying to clear his vision. He got the engine turned over again, but the van only lurched to one side on its rear wheels. It had to be a broken axle.

He heard another canister slam into the van through the shattered back window. Chan knew it wasn’t another flash bang when he heard it hissing out some kind of aerosol and heard Benz and Otter wheezing and coughing. The gas would get to him through the wire cage in seconds.

Chan pressed the power button on his sat phone, punched in the emergency number and yelled, “We’re down! We’re down! One mile from Lee! We’re down!” He felt the world fading, and there was nothing he could do about it. He watched smoke rise in a skinny gray funnel from beneath the hood as the sat phone dropped from his hand.

He heard

someone’s voice outside the van, shouting orders. How many were there? It didn’t matter, nothing he could do mattered anymore. Chan wondered if the gas, or whatever it was, was going to kill him. He didn’t want to die, he wanted to stay with Liddy and the kids—

3

CRIMINAL APPREHENSION UNIT, CAU

HOOVER BUILDING

WASHINGTON, D.C.

MONDAY AFTERNOON

When Savich invited Special Agent Cam Wittier to move over to the CAU from the Criminal Division, there was no question in her mind it was a good move, though her chief had cursed Savich out for stealing her. She knew it was going to be an easy transition for her since she already knew most of the CAU agents and liked them, and they seemed to like her and think she was a good addition. She’d long admired the unit and what they did, just as she admired CAU chief Dillon Savich, occasionally even wished he wasn’t married to her kickboxing partner, Sherlock. She did wonder, though, if he would have invited her into the unit if she hadn’t managed to solve the Starlet Slasher murders two weeks before in L.A. She wasn’t about to float that question. She doubted she ever would.

It was twelve thirty on a bright Monday afternoon in July, an oven outside, but inside the Hoover Building the AC was pumping along fine. It was officially her first day in her new unit. She’d left the personnel department only a few minutes ago and paused a moment in the doorway, uncertain. All five agents working in-house looked up from their computers and their cells, stopped their conversations, smiled at her, waved, welcomed her. Shirley, the unit secretary, hugged her and showed her to the desk of Special Agent Dane Carver, who’d recently transferred to the Los Angeles Field Office, with his professor wife and baby daughter. L.A. was a meaty assignment in the bank-robbery capital of the country, but Cam preferred the CAU. She spoke to everyone, listened, laughed. She didn’t see Sherlock, but she did see her new boss, Dillon Savich, through his office windows, alternately speaking on his cell and typing on his laptop MAX. He looked up, smiled at her.

She was soon drinking a mug of black coffee and leaning over Agent Ruth Noble’s shoulder reading a report from Walt Monaco, SAC of the Richmond Field Office, about Liam Hennessey, aka Manta Ray, and his escape from the U.S. Marshals only a mile out from their destination—Lee Penitentiary in Pennington Gap, Virginia, the high-security federal prison.

He’d escaped only three hours before, and Monaco had already mobilized the local FBI office and coordinated with local law enforcement to begin the manhunt.

Agent Ruth Noble looked up and put her hand over her cell phone. “Give me a minute, Cam, then we can discuss this mess. It’s my son Rafe—he’s suffering girlfriend problems.”