He had a choice to make: left or right.
He flicked on his right-turn signal, and the Suburban did the same. Suddenly, he jammed one foot down on the brakes while keeping the other foot on the gas pedal. His car rocked to a halt, its engine revving like crazy. As the Suburban slammed to a halt behind him, Danny cut the wheel hard left and floored the Honda’s accelerator, blasting through the intersection, through the red light, swerving around the U-Haul van, narrowly missing it.
The van honked and braked and skidded sideways. The VW bug, trailing too close behind it, clipped its rear bumper, sending both cars spinning into the center of the intersection. Danny saw this in his rearview mirror as he gunned it down the tree-lined road.
He took a quick right turn, so fast that he felt the tires on the left side nearly come off the road, narrowly averting a collision with a Subaru station wagon pulling out of a driveway. Two blocks more and he turned left, then another right.
Sirens were blaring, two police squad cars heading the other way-toward the accident, he assumed. The accident he’d caused. He glanced left, saw the pileup-and no Suburban. He’d left it behind. It was massive and ungainly and top-heavy, and a sharp turn might tip it over.
Meanwhile, Danny took advantage of the crucial few seconds of lead time to hang a left, once he was sure he was out of the Suburban’s sight. He’d entered a short road with two houses on either side that ended in a T. There he took a right. The houses here were small, pristine brick buildings, all the lawns neatly mowed. He went to the end of the next street and took the first left and immediately realized he’d entered a cul-de-sac. Not good. He didn’t want to get stuck. So he pulled into the first driveway he came to. A pink tricycle sat in the driveway, silver fringe hanging from its handlebars. A brightly colored play structure on a postage-stamp-size lawn. Someone pulled back the curtain in the front window.
He backed out down the street and went on to the next one.
He was on a main thoroughfare now, much more heavily trafficked. A jeweler, a travel agency, a RadioShack, a Chinese restaurant. Two more blocks and he’d hit Route 60, which would take him straight to Medford. He glanced at the rearview-
And his heart sank. There, turning onto the street, was a black Suburban. Gritting his teeth, Danny sped up and swung around into a narrow alley next to the Chinese restaurant. On the left side was a Dumpster, heaped with black trash bags. He cut the wheel and pulled up just past it, the Honda right up against the brick side wall.
Had they seen him make the turn? Would they be able to make out the car from the road? He’d pulled into a blind alley, a dead end. All he could do now was wait. Wait, and hope. He was fairly certain he couldn’t be seen from the street. He looked in the rearview mirror, watched and waited.
He was still holding his breath a minute later, when the Suburban came into view. It moved slowly, the sun glinting off its shiny black hood. Moving slowly enough that he could make out the crew cut driver, now wearing mirrored sunglasses.
No question about it. It was them.
He breathed out slowly. Took another breath. Waited.
The Suburban kept going. Drove right past.
He waited a few minutes longer, just to be sure. A scuffed steel door in the alley came open suddenly and a tired-looking middle-aged Chinese man emerged, jolting Danny. He spun, his fists up-and then he saw the man hurl a trash bag up into the Dumpster, and Danny started laughing, uncontrollably, with relief. The guy glanced in Danny’s direction, shook his head, and went back inside, slamming the door behind him.
Five minutes later, Danny pulled back onto the street.
Half an hour later, he arrived in Medford.
He pulled into a large dusty lot surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with coils of razor wire. Signs on the fence said NO TRESPASSERS and KEEP OUT. A sign at the entrance gate said MEDFORD REGIONAL CONSTRUCTION & ENGINEERING/EMPLOYEES ONLY/TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED.
The gate was open.
79
Medford Regional was one of several Massachusetts companies owned by the Sinaloa cartel, with Tom Galvin the titular CEO. Danny wasn’t sure whether the cartel owned them for any reason other than that Galvin considered them a good investment. The company’s officials, according to Galvin, had no idea who their real owner was.
But they knew the name of their boss on paper and were happy to accommodate.
He drove through the gate and stopped at a construction trailer.
Danny got out and climbed up a few steps into the trailer. On the trailer’s front door were a US Marine decal and a Boston Strong ribbon sticker. He opened the door and said, “I’m looking for Paul.”
The guy at the desk stood up. He was a short, heavily muscled guy with full-sleeve tattoos and thick steel-framed glasses.
“I’m Paul,” the guy said, glowering.
“I’m Dan.”
The guy suddenly turned friendly. He stuck out his hand.
“The orders I got-this can’t be right.”
Danny had expected such a reaction. “It’s right,” he said.
“You got an end-user certificate?”
Danny pulled out the document that had been e-mailed to Galvin and handed it over. Paul looked at it briefly, then looked up. He shrugged. “Long as my ass is covered, I’m good. Where’s all this stuff going?”
Danny pointed to his Honda.
“You’re gonna want to pull up to the last trailer. But first, you got a bunch of forms to sign.”
80
Though it had been several hours since Dr. Mendoza had learned the identity of the DEA’s confidential source, he was still astonished by the revelation.
Thomas Galvin, one of the cartel’s American employees, had turned.
Dr. Mendoza would never have expected el dedo, the snitch, to be someone at that high a level. Galvin had become immensely rich through his dealings with Sinaloa. He wouldn’t have terminated the business relationship unless he’d somehow been compromised. The DEA must have obtained actionable intelligence on the man. There was no other plausible explanation.
But the explanation was far less important than the solution.
The cartel wanted him silenced. For that, of course, they didn’t need Dr. Mendoza. A simple hit team would do. The cartel could dispatch a unit comprising local talent, to take Galvin with brute force, neutralizing his minimal private security presence. There were, after all, only four security officers standing guard at Galvin’s estate: three patrolling on foot and a fourth in a vehicle circumnavigating the perimeter.
Easy.
But the cartel also needed Galvin’s full cooperation. They needed access to the accounts he ran for them. They needed a full transfer of owner documents. To kill the man would only create vast bureaucratic problems for the cartel. Galvin had to be questioned before he was killed.
Dr. Mendoza sat in his rented Nissan Maxima and watched the front gates of Galvin’s property and thought for a moment.
Galvin had barricaded himself and his family inside his estate. But that was merely a desperation move. Dr. Mendoza had compiled a hasty psychological profile of the family based on little more than credit reports, financial statements, and a few cartel files. Galvin’s wife was a regular shopper with a regular, if small, social life. She was likely to insist on leaving the property soon. But she was the child of one of the cartel’s founders, so she was off-limits. Galvin had a school-age daughter who didn’t have a driver’s license. She would not be leaving the premises on her own.
But he was confident that Galvin himself would be leaving, and soon.