The guy was onto me. “Do you have a better suggestion?”
“Yes. Take a step back and ask yourself why the FBI really declined the State Department’s invitation to participate in this case.”
I didn’t like his tone. Things had suddenly moved from a friendly discussion to a subtle confrontation, one I didn’t fully understand. “You’re going to have to help me out there, Mr. Huitt.”
“Did you know that your father has been stopped and interrogated by U.S. customs nineteen times in the last five years?”
That one hit me like ice water. “No.”
“Does it surprise you?”
“Not really. He probably fits an arbitrary profile the government has developed. As often as he travels alone between Miami and Central America, it honestly surprises me that he hasn’t been stopped more often.”
They just stared at me, silent accusers. Their gaze made me look away, through the conference room’s glass wall. At one of the workstations outside the conference room, I noticed a bumper sticker tacked up on the bulletin board. It read, SO MANY COLOMBIANS, SO LITTLE TIME.
“Am I in the narcotics unit?” I asked.
“Yes. I’m a squad leader.”
“My father’s been kidnapped. Why am I talking to narcotics agents?”
“Because we’re the ones you need to play ball with.”
“What?”
“You give us something, we give you something. Quid pro quo.”
“You’d better mean squid pro quo, because that’s about all the Rey family can give you. My father’s a fisherman.”
“Fisherman, huh?”
“Yeah. Fisherman.”
“Whatever you say. But if you stick to that story, we get nowhere in our efforts to resolve the so-called policy differences between the FBI and the State Department.”
I leaned into the table and looked him in the eye. “Let me make sure I understand. You’re telling me that this deadlock between the FBI and the State Department can be cleared up if. . what?”
“If you cut the crap about your old man being a fisherman.”
“But that’s what he is.”
“Humor us,” said Huitt. “For argument’s sake, let’s say he’s not.”
I was getting angry. “Okay, let’s play fantasy world. My dad’s not a fisherman. Then what? You’re saying that the FBI will help him get released from his kidnappers, but only if I give you information that will land him in jail the minute he returns to the United States? That’s crazy.”
“We’re not after your old man. It’s his business partner we want. The Nicaraguan, Guillermo Cruz.”
“I barely even know Guillermo.”
“That’s our point,” said the female agent, her only contribution.
I looked at her, then at Huitt. Both were deadpan. There was nothing I could say in Guillermo’s defense. I’d met him only once in my life.
Huitt said, “Talk to your mother, see how much she knows. If you can come up with something compelling on Cruz, we’re in business. We get the man we want. Your father gets an FBI negotiator working on his case. Your whole family can have immunity from prosecution.”
“Prosecution for what?”
“Talk to your mother. And take my advice. Watch yourself around Guillermo Cruz.”
They rose simultaneously, as if on cue. It struck me as pure intimidation, the strategic moment at which an experienced agent like Huitt liked to end meetings of this sort.
The younger agent opened the door to escort me back to the lobby. As she led me away from the table, I stopped for one last word with Huitt.
“Just out of curiosity,” I said. “Of all those times my father was stopped by U.S. customs, how many times was he found to have broken the law?”
He said nothing.
“That’s what I thought.” I turned and headed out the door, the other agent at my side.
“Kid,” said Huitt.
I was halfway down the hall with Agent Pintero. We stopped and looked back.
“It only takes once,” he said flatly, then stepped back into the conference room.
I wondered if that was some kind of warning that he’d continue to dog my family until he got something on us. Or was he implying that he already had the goods?
I continued toward the lobby in silence, more confused than when I’d arrived.
9
“Notice of Death” were the three words that caught my attention. Alone at my desk, I read the caption on the pleading twice to make sense of it.
After the meeting with Agent Huitt, I’d driven straight down I-95 to my law firm. I quickly dismissed the idea of asking Duncan Fitz for advice on how to handle the government’s accusations. My supervising partner would have been utterly unamused to hear that my father and his business partner were on the FBI’s radar screen. Nevertheless, I rode up the elevator and went straight to my office, with no real purpose other than to be alone there. As my ex-fiancee had finally come to realize, my career was my cocoon. Bad news, a crisis of any sort-retreating to my cubbyhole and immersing myself in work could make just about anything seem to disappear. Countless times Jenna had begged me to crawl out of my cave and talk out a problem with her. Eventually I would emerge, usually with the proud announcement that I’d figured out everything by myself and that there was nothing left to talk about. It used to make her crazy.
And here I was again, going through my stack of mail, as if that would fix everything with the FBI. It wouldn’t, of course, and what made the whole exercise even more absurd was that I didn’t even need to be there. Duncan had arranged for another associate to review my mail while I was on personal leave for the week. Anything that was deemed bland enough to remain in my in-box until my return was about as compelling as reading the phone book, with the exception of the latest pleading filed by the plaintiff’s counsel in the Med-Fam Pharmaceuticals case. A simple one-page “notice of death” advised the court of the sad turn of events.
Gilbert Jones was dead.
He had died of respiratory failure the morning after Duncan talked him into playing “Let’s Make a Deal.” We all knew he was going to die. No one expected it to happen this soon. He’d given up. Duncan had snatched away what little he had left to fight for in his life. Having met Gilbert, I felt bad enough. Dad’s being kidnapped made me feel that much worse. Gilbert’s death made me realize that everyone had a breaking point, maybe not the stomach to pull the trigger or jump off a bridge, but certainly the ability to act-or, more precisely, not act-on the realization that there was no escape and that pushing forward was utterly pointless. That Gilbert had reached his point of despair so soon after Duncan’s ploy made me terribly depressed. The thought that Dad might someday follow had me downright distressed. Even the strong could snap at the hands of abusive kidnappers.
I pushed the mail aside. Being alone wasn’t the answer. I needed to talk to someone.
I wasn’t exactly sure why, but I found myself dialing Jenna’s phone number. My mother had planted the seed in my head yesterday when she’d suggested that I tell her about the kidnapping. It had sounded like a bad idea then, and in some ways it didn’t sound any better now. I was down in the dumps, however, and for some reason I wanted to hear her voice.
“Hello,” she answered.
I almost hung up, but I knew that her cell phone had Caller ID. She’d think I was stalking her.
“Hi, it’s me. Nick.”
“I know. I recognized the number. How are you?”
“I have some bad news, I’m afraid.”
“Your dad, I know. I’m sorry.”
“You heard?”
“I saw Duncan Fitz at the courthouse yesterday. He told me.”
Jenna was a trial lawyer at a small firm in Coral Gables. As she used to rub it in, lawyers at smaller firms actually had their own cases and got to see the inside of the courthouse, unlike the young paper pushers at law firms like Cool Cash.
“Well, I’m glad he mentioned it,” I said. “I wanted you to know.”