Burying the Past Read online

  'The Governor,' in this case, was the Democratic candidate for President Gerald Caine, the current governor of California.

  “She’s been through this before though, right?” Whitaker asked. “Campaigning, I mean.”

  “Yeah. Most of what he’s bringing up was thrown at her when she ran for Senator, the last time. Mom says they’ll hope people outside of South Carolina don’t pay attention to how it was debunked back then since they’ve basically written off the Carolina’s as solidly in her corner.”

  “Makes sense. Do you think ….” Whitaker started to say when a flash surprised all of them.

  Taylor’s hand went to the small of his back where he kept his currently empty holster, the weapon being turned over to the Secret Service to make them feel better. As an active member of law enforcement, they let Whitaker keep her weapon.

  It was quickly apparent that the surprise was in the form of a man holding a camera, being hustled out by one of Mary Jane’s agents.

  “I should call Mom,” Mary Jane said.

  “Is everything alright?” Whitaker asked.

  “Yeah, but that guy’ll sell the picture to a bunch of papers in the morning. Fred warned me that if someone snapped my picture, and I was with anyone or doing anything other than praying or reading a textbook, I needed to call him and let him know.”

  “Why?” Kara asked.

  “Her opponent will look at the pictures and try to figure out if anyone Mrs. Caldwell’s daughter was socializing with, was juicy enough to make an issue of it.”

  “Do you think that I’ll be …”

  “No, sweetie,” Mary Jane said.

  “We should talk to your mom as well,” Whitaker said.

  Taylor knew what she was thinking, although neither would say it out loud where Kara could hear them. They’d all been purposefully careful not to overly associate with the Senator, or her daughter in public. Kara’s past could be made, if presented in the wrong light, into something they could use to attack the Senator.

  Taylor wasn’t sure why they hadn’t thought about it this time. Maybe it was because they were all so excited about the adoption process being complete or finding out that Kara was about to become a citizen, but neither of them had thought about it. Now that seemed like a mistake.

  Taylor was about to suggest they all leave when Whitaker’s phone rang.

  “Whitaker,” she said when she answered. “Where? How long ago? Do we have … Ok. I’ll be in the office in fifteen minutes.”

  She hung up and looked over at Taylor.

  “The card that was used to rent the car in Tuscon was just used again.”

  “Where?”

  “A McDonald's in Tennessee, of all places. We need to get back to the office.”

  “Should I be going with Mary?” Kara asked.

  “No. There’ll be people watching for us to leave, hoping for more photos. Since there’s a chance they’ll try and follow us when we leave, it’s probably best if you went with us to the office. We might not be too long; and if we are, we can find someone to run you home.”

  “Ok,” Kara said, somewhat mutedly.

  “It’ll be ok. They’re right, though, I should head home and talk to Mom.”

  The two redheads hugged, and Mary Jane was hustled out of the restaurant. Taylor paid for the check, and they headed out as well. Sure enough, they saw the guy with the camera outside, who snapped their picture as they got into their SUV and pulled out. After a few minutes, Taylor was certain they were being followed, probably with hopes of tracking them to their home to figure out who these three people with Caldwell’s daughter were.

  Considering this vehicle was assigned to Whitaker by the Bureau, with a license that would track back to the Bureau, and they were heading to the Hoover building, following them wouldn’t help their pursuers that much. Taylor was equally certain that wouldn’t matter, and someone would figure out who they were. Whitaker was enough of a rising star, that someone would pick her out of the picture; and Taylor had been in the news enough times with the various jobs he’d taken, that it wouldn’t take them that much longer to put a name to his face, either.

  He just hoped they didn’t find out much about Kara, for her sake. She was just starting to get better, and the last thing they needed was people looking to score points off of her.

  They got a pass for Kara, Taylor didn’t need one since he’d been issued temporary credentials and dropped her off in Whitaker's office before heading to the conference room that had been taken over by Crawford.

  They found the man in the conference room, freshly back from Tucson.

  “How was your hunt?” Taylor asked.

  “John,” Whitaker warned.

  “No, it’s alright, Loretta,” Crawford said, holding up a hand. “He was right, they were long gone. I should’ve listened, but I dug in my heels. Had you guys not been along, I probably would have come straight back, too.”

  Taylor was surprised. In his experience, bureaucrats like Crawford had about zero self-awareness and never admitted when they were wrong. A semblance of self-awareness pushed the man a few steps up in Taylor’s book.

  “So one of these guys used the same card in Tennessee? That’s luckier than I’d hoped we’d get,” Taylor said.

  “I thought you said you expected one of the people Qasim ‘borrowed’ to screw up and give them away?”

  “I did; but not this fast, and not this blatantly. While it’s true other groups Qasim is drafting off of aren’t as disciplined or well trained as his people, they all have some level of operational security. Using the credit card they used to rent a car again at a fast food restaurant is beyond what I expected from them.”

  “The one thing we are relying on in law enforcement, more than anything else, is that criminals are, by and large, stupid,” Crawford said.

  “Did they report anyone else with this guy?”

  “No, just the one guy. The car wasn’t tinted so they could see there was no one there, either. We got the video from their security system, a few minutes ago. Some of my guys are going over it now, but we have another piece of good luck. The guy is driving another rental.”

  “Right this second?” Whitaker asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Why is that a big deal?” Taylor asked at seeing Whitaker’s excited expression.

  “All the major rental companies low-jack their cars, these days. If he’s driving it right now, we’ll know exactly where this guy is.”

  “Great,” Taylor said. “So what’s the plan?”

  “We’ll know any minute if the car has a tracker on it. We’ve already started drawing up the warrant to get the company to turn over access info on the car. Agents are already staging in the area for when we get it.”

  “You’re going to put on a tail?” Whitaker asked.

  “Yes. Better to see who he talks to and maybe get a lead on Qasim then grab the driver now and drive the rest to ground.”

  “We should…” Taylor started.

  Crawford held up a hand and said, “We’re already gassing up the plane. We were really just waiting on you two.”

  “What if they don’t have a tracker?”

  “We’ll just turn the plane around. I’d rather waste some gas, then waste time waiting here.”

  “A man after my own heart,” Taylor said, slapping Crawford on the shoulder.

  “Let's go ahead and head over. They’ll call us as soon as they confirm they have the warrant.”

  “We need someone to run our … daughter, home,” Whitaker said with a slight pause as she tried out the unfamiliar phrase.

  “Daughter?” Crawford said, surprised.

  “Long story, I’ll explain on the plane. She’s in my office.”

  “Sure, I’ll get Al to give her a ride.”

  “Great, let’s get going,” Taylor said.

  They stopped and said goodbye to Kara on the way out, putting emphasis on their trusting her to stay at home by herself. She seemed to think t
hey were being silly but accepted the fussing. Taylor got the distinct impression that she secretly liked the attention.

  On the plane, Whitaker explained Kara to Crawford, while Taylor stayed mostly silent. This led to an extended explanation, or in many cases, a noncommittal ‘I can’t talk about that,’ about the events surrounding how Kara ended up following Taylor home from Russia. Unfortunately, Crawford zeroed in on the one part of the explanation that Taylor had wanted to avoid.

  “So you went to Russia originally, to find this other girl, right? The thing with the girl you adopted happened later, right?”

  “Yeah,” Taylor answered non committedly.

  “I’ve dealt with the Russians several times over the years, and I’ve never found them terribly accommodating to US investigators chasing suspects on Russian soil. I can’t imagine they’d be more accommodating to a private investigator, doing the same thing they don’t want federal agents doing. How’d you manage to get permission?”

  “They didn’t want these guys operating in their backyard, any more than we would,” Taylor said, knowing it wasn’t going to divert Crawford.

  “We wouldn’t let Russians clear up problems in our borders any more than the Russians would let us. Come to think of it, while Loretta did a good job glossing over the details, it sure sounds like you ended up shooting some people while you were over there. How come you're not sitting in a Russian prison right now?”

  “That happened in Belarus, not Russia.”

  “And yet, when I looked up our file on you, I didn’t notice any Interpol or Belarusian warrants outstanding for you.”

  “Some interested parties helped me out.”

  “Who would those interested parties happen to be?”

  “I can’t say, and I’m not even sure I would tell you if I could. I’m not a suspect you’re investigating.”

  “Hey,” Crawford said, holding up his hands defensively “this is just a friendly conversation. I’m just curious.”

  “You’ll just have to live with your curiosity.”

  “Fair enough,” the larger man said, staring out the plane window.

  After a few moments, without looking back at Taylor, he said, “I can’t help but wonder though, if those same people are how you ended up on this task-force.”

  Taylor didn’t answer, but he knew this wasn’t the end of it. Crawford wasn’t openly hostile to him anymore, but he still had a civil servant's dislike of interlopers in his domain. Taylor knew the man would keep picking at this particular itch.

  Chapter 5

  Memphis, Tennessee

  When they landed, a car from the local field office met them on the tarmac. The way Crawford started with the agent waiting at the car without prelude, suggested to Taylor that he’d either coordinated with this man ahead of time or knew him already.

  “Where are we?”

  “We’ve picked up the car, and the locals have three cars on a rotating tail. As soon as you give the word, locals will affect the traffic stop.”

  “I want to be on hand before that happens.”

  “We should get going then,” Whitaker said. “The longer they have the tail, the greater the chance that he’ll stop somewhere with people around or notice the tail.”

  The unidentified agent nodded and headed around the car, with Crawford sliding into the passenger seat, leaving the rear of the vehicle for Whitaker and Taylor.

  “What do we know about this guy?” Taylor asked as they pulled away from the plane.

  “Not a lot. Facial matching couldn’t pick him out of any of the databases we’re tied into,” the local guy said.

  “Really?” Taylor asked. “I would’ve thought you guys were tied into every system.”

  “We are but facial recognition isn’t like fingerprints,” Crawford said, not looking back. “The angle of the picture, lighting at the time of the picture, resolution of the picture, and simple things like beards or glasses can throw it off. You also get a lot of false positives. It’s still a vital tool, but only picks out and matches the subject if they’re in one of our databases, about seventy percent of the time. While that sounds great, thirty percent is too big of a section to say this guy isn’t one of them.”

  “So we need to get his prints?”

  “Yep. From the description of the McDonald’s employees, he had an accent, so I’d bet he’s hiding in an immigration database, and we’ll probably find him as soon as we run his prints.”

  They got quiet for a minute while Crawford pulled out his phone and called in to let Washington know they were on scene and get any updates. Once he hung up, Taylor asked his next question.

  “What about the info from the rental company?”

  “It looks to be like what you guys found in Arizona. The name on the ID he used is bogus, comes back to a guy in Montana who we’ve verified is still there,” the local guy said.

  “What’s he been doing since you started tailing him?” Whitaker asked.

  “He spent most of the time in a coffee shop, typing on a laptop.”

  “Were you able to check out the car?”

  “No, he parked out front, and the place had large windows. We couldn’t get to it without him seeing us. We’re thinking ...”

  The guy’s phone rang, interrupting him.

  “Yeah? ... direction? ... what channel? .. ok.”

  He hung up and clicked on the small portable radio he had resting on the center console, twisting a nob while half looking out the window. After a second, a voice started coming through the radio.

  “514, he’s turning north out of the parking lot. We’re going to rotate off and circle around to get ahead of him. Do you have it?”

  “Roger.”

  “He just left the coffee shop,” the local guy said. “We’re about two minutes out.”

  “Ok, pull him over,” Crawford said

  “Andy, we’re coming up now. Have the locals make the traffic stop,” the local guy said into the radio.

  “Roger.” the voice on the radio said.

  Their car turned another corner just in time to see the light bar on the top of a patrol car kick on, as the patrol car pulled behind the suspect. For a second, it looked like the suspect car was going to take off, and probably would have if another patrol car hadn’t blocked off the intersection ahead at that moment. The black SUV that pulled up nearly parallel with the blocking patrol car made any ideas of smashing through go out the window.

  The local cops were just getting out of their car when the suspect surprised everyone by throwing his door open and stepping out, pulling an AK-47 out with him. The cop in the passenger side of the car that pulled him over managed to get one wild shot off before both ducked behind the doors of their car as a stream of bullets smacked into the patrol car.

  Both men scuttled behind their car, knowing the doors would offer no real protection as two FBI SUVs pulled up behind it. Taylor was glad that the guy driving their car stopped a good ways back as the bullets started to fly since the locals had just about the worst fire discipline he’d ever seen. The guys who’d affected the stop started popping off rounds at the suspect, some blond bozos firing while they remained hidden behind the car. Their friends in the blocking patrol car did the same, creating a nasty bit of crossfire.

  Taylor even saw a bullet impact the stopping patrol car’s windshield as the suspect stopped firing to reload, which had to come from the other locals down the street. If they kept this up, someone was going to get hit by friendly fire.

  Thankfully, it didn’t have to continue. The suspect had just seated his replacement magazine when the first bullet found him. Considering the four locals and a handful of FBI agents who were all firing, from both sides, it was impossible to tell who’d made the first hit, but it didn't’ matter as several more followed close on its heels.

  Taylor, Crawford, and Whitaker all got out at the same time, each crouching low as shouts of ‘check fire’ were shouted out from multiple directions. No one lowered their guns,
but at least they stopped firing.

  “That was a shit show,” Taylor mumbled as he duck-walked past Crawford.

  Looking around the SUV they’d started approaching behind, he could see one of the locals had closed in on the suspect and kicked the assault rifle aside, weapons still pointed at the man.

  “No kidding,” Crawford said. “Someone’s going to get their ass chewed over this.”

  “He’s down,” the local standing over the suspect said.