“Right now,” Booth said, “I’m more interested in the lives of four FBI agents.”
“Of course you are,” McMichael said, chagrined. “Of course you are.”
Woolfolk said, “I’ve got the Chicago PD crime scene unit on the way to the safe house….”
“Good.”
“…and we’ve got agents working every angle we can think of.”
Nodding to Woolfolk, Booth opened the door and walked back in. He was only vaguely aware that the other two men followed.
He circled the table and looked down, his eyes boring into Raymond Gianelli’s.
The Mafioso didn’t flinch.
Booth’s immediate urge was to slam Gianelli into the wall, screw his pistol in the man’s ear, and question him about the whereabouts of the four missing agents…
…but that would cost more than it would gain.
He continued to stare at Gianelli, willing the emotion away, calming the anger, becoming the sniper again.
His voice steady, he asked, “You want to tell me where they are?”
Gianelli squinted. “Who are where…?”
“You want to make a deal,” Booth said, “now’s the time.” He thumped the wooden surface between them. “This is the only time there will ever be anything on the table for you or your son.”
Shrugging with a single shoulder, Gianelli said, “You don’t seem to understand, Agent Booth — innocent parties don’t need deals. And I’m an innocent party. It’s the guilty parties who need to make deals, and I’m not one of them.”
Booth said nothing, temper in check. He wouldn’t waste time here with this scum when fellow agents were in harm’s way.
He said, “All right, that’s enough for today.”
“You want us to leave?” Vincent Gianelli asked. “After we came all the way down here?”
McMichael chimed in his approval of Booth’s call, saying, “Yes — other related matters have taken precedence.”
Booth said, “As you well know.”
The elder Gianelli rose, smiling. “I’ll tell you what I ‘know,’ Agent Booth — I know harassment when I see it. I know when a guy is spinning his wheels and wasting my time.”
Booth said nothing.
Attorney Selachi was shaking his head. “We made a great effort here at a considerable inconvenience to my clients and—”
McMichael cut him off. “We have an emergency. There will be no deposition today.”
When the others had cleared out, Booth followed Woolfolk down through the building to the parking lot.
The two agents immediately headed to the safe house where Musetti had been held in a small Indiana community just the other side of Gary.
The thinking had been that if they moved Musetti out of the Chicago metro area, their witness could be guarded more effectively. Booth’s superiors had picked a small gated community called Ogden Dunes inside the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore Park.
Booth had considered it an excellent location for a safe house; but, obviously, it had not been safe enough….
Even with the red lights flashing, Woolfolk spent an hour getting through midday Chicago traffic, driving around Gary, then finally turning left onto the long two-lane blacktop that led to the tiny burg of Ogden Dunes.
The first thing a visitor saw upon approaching this semi-private community on the south shore of Lake Michigan was a speed bump the size of a Native American burial mound; the second thing was a guard shack with a huge stop sign hanging from a metal pole just outside.
Normally, a uniformed guard would come out, ask the entering motorist his or her destination, then phone ahead.
For the last ten days, that guard had been one of four FBI agents assigned to Stewart Musetti. In his turn, each went undercover in the security company uniform.
Now, as Woolfolk eased the Crown Victoria up to the guard shack, the pretense was gone.
Two men approached the stopped car, each wearing the typical gray suit and dark glasses of special agents.
The one from the shack on the passenger side came up to Booth’s window, pistol drawn, his arm hanging down so the pistol was almost hidden behind his leg.
The agent on the driver’s side approached holding an MP5 at port arms and leaned down to address Woolfolk, who already had his ID out.
To Booth, all this was the Bureau equivalent of closing the barn door long after the horse was gone. Hell, the horse, four riders, the saddle, their case, his career….
Booth powered down his window to show his ID to the tall blond agent who took off his dark glasses to reveal light blue eyes as he studied the ID nearly identical to his own. Booth had seen the man in the Chicago office but had no idea what his name was.
The agent gave Booth a polite nod and put his glasses back on.
“What the hell happened?” Booth asked him.
The agent looked at him, said nothing, then offered up an almost imperceptible shrug.
On the other side of the car, the other guard waved Woolfolk through.
Woolfolk followed the blacktop another quarter mile, turned right onto a side street, and parked in front of the third house on the right.
Two police cars were parked on the street along with two more Crown Vics and a Chicago PD evidence tech van angled into the driveway of a sprawling white two-story clapboard house with black shutters on half a dozen windows.
Getting out, Booth noticed that other than the police cars, which had brought out a few gawkers, the neighborhood looked much as it had the day he had scouted the house — just like every other block in this tiny town hunkered next to the lake… quiet, unassuming, anonymous.
The Gianellis had a long reach, but the only way they could have found this place was from someone inside the Bureau — a prospect that added nausea to the rage boiling in Booth’s belly.
Seeley Booth had two priorities now — find Stewart Musetti; and find the sellout in the Bureau who had leaked the location of the safe house.
“Who’s in charge?” Booth asked as Woolfolk caught up with him on the sidewalk.
Both men were sticking their IDs in their breast pockets to identify themselves.
“Dillon,” Woolfolk said. “He’s probably inside.”
Robert Dillon — always Robert, never Bob, which led to bad jokes about the singer — was Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago office; a hard-ass, but always fair. Booth respected him.
Booth and Woolfolk walked up to the front door. As they approached, two Chicago evidence techs exited carrying their cases.
One was a tall African-American guy — BELL, according to his name tag. The other was a red-haired woman nearly as tall and thin as her partner; her name tag read: SMITH.
“Anything?” Booth asked.
The woman gave them a glum smile. “Not much.”
Bell shook his head. “Place is cleaner than my apartment.”
The evidence techs continued on to their van while Booth and Dillon opened the front door.
The living room was empty but for the rent-to-own-style furnishings. A couch sat against one wall, two chairs at angles next to it, a television perched on a stand underneath a huge window.
Booth put his hand against the TV screen — cool.
The two agents passed through into a dining room. Four chairs surrounded a rectangular oak table, place mats on the table, sun streaming through thin curtains from three windows. The room seemed as if it was just waiting for someone to set out lunch.
In the kitchen, they found an agent Booth knew from the academy, a wide-shouldered, ruddy-faced guy named Mike Stanton.
Counters running down the two sides, refrigerator on the right, stove and microwave on the left, the spacious kitchen had an island in the middle and a breakfast nook in the back right corner.
The breakfast dishes were still on the table, the attack probably coming mid-meal. Nothing seemed amiss, meaning the agents hadn’t even had the chance to draw their weapons.