Gone (Michael Bennett 6)

We all jumped when there was a sudden pounding on the door behind us.

CHAPTER 77

EMILY AND I IMMEDIATELY took out our guns.

“What is this? What’s going on in there? Tomás, are you OK? What’s going on in there? Open this door!”

“This is a police interview!” I yelled as I ripped the door open behind my gun. “Put your hands up now!”

I was surprised when I saw that the shocked-looking man standing in the doorway wasn’t a Hispanic gangbanger but a petite Asian guy wearing golf clothes and Clark Kent glasses.

“How dare you point a gun at me! I’m Terrence Che, Mr. Neves’s lawyer. Now, I demand that you tell me what’s going on this instant!”

“They’re framing me, is what’s going on!” Neves yelled. “They’re framing me, Terrence!”

Diaz rolled his eyes. “Shit,” he mumbled as he reluctantly uncuffed Tomás.

“Who are you people? Why are you harassing my client?” Che said as I put my gun away.

“Well, it’s kind of a long story,” Diaz said, handing the lawyer the wet bar of cellophane-wrapped soap as he gently pushed him to the side.

“And wouldn’t you know it? We’re late for a meeting,” Emily said as we exited the room.

“Wait, I’m not done with you. This is illegal,” the feisty, pocket-sized lawyer said, following us down the stairs, into the garage. “You can’t just go around assaulting people. What’s your badge number?”

“Oh, my badge number,” Diaz said, turning and giving him the finger. “LAPD Badge Number One. Got it? Super. Bye, now.”

“Well, that went well,” Emily said as we screeched out of the lot, hopefully before the lawyer could get the plates.

“It did go well, actually,” Diaz said, lazing in the backseat.

“What do you mean? What did Tomás say to you?”

“He said, ‘Please, man. Don’t do this. He’ll kill my family.’ ”

“So Tomás does know something,” Parker said.

Diaz nodded.

“Apparently,” he said.

CHAPTER 78

AFTER WE RETURNED TO HQ and relayed the info about Neves’s connection to Perrine, the reaction up the chain of command was impressive and immediate.

FBI Assistant Director Dressler personally got on the phone to a senior intelligence analyst at none other than the NSA for a full Homeland Security Total Information Awareness workup on the gangbanger.

TIA was an NSA supercomputer-fueled data-mining tool that apparently could de-encrypt and scour each and every data source on the planet to find out about an individual. There were no warrants involved, not even any formal requests to phone or credit card companies that could be turned down. The

NSA hackers just went in wherever they needed to go and took what they wanted.

It was supposed to have been shut down after a hue and cry by the ACLU about privacy, but apparently it wasn’t as shut down as the ACLU thought. Which was fine by me. At least in this instance. Bending and even breaking rules was the least we could do in stopping the utter savagery that Perrine was waging on American citizens.

I admired the heck out of Dressler’s get-her-done attitude. He was even smart enough not to ask us how we came across our info. All he wanted was progress so he could nail Perrine’s ass to the floorboards. Perrine had made a bad mistake when he had killed Agent Mara. The FBI was very, very pissed.

I admired Diaz’s attitude just as much. The Charles Bronson look-alike had certainly stepped up and taken charge of Neves back at the garage. He was a throwback, one of those all-in all-the-time cops who knew the cold, brutal truth that sometimes the solution to a situation comes at the business end of a billy club.

“Tell me something, John,” I said as we put our feet up with a cup of coffee at the back of the command center. “This CRASH-unit scandal thing. You didn’t, perchance, have some personal experience concerning that situation, did you?”