Blood Runs Cold

65

Ren made it down the dark hallway of the prison, then started to run. And run. By the time she got to the Sheriff’s Office, her breath was heaving. She made it into the bathroom, locked the door and collapsed on to the floor. Tears streamed down her face, soaking her shirt, wetting the tiles beneath her cheek. She lost control of the terrible, wrenching sobs. She paused to draw breath and could hear someone pounding on the door.

‘Ren, open up. Ren, please. You need to open up. Let me in.’ It was Gary.

Group One undercover employees are cut off completely from their regular life for as long as it takes them to safely do their job. Each UCE has a contact agent; ten years ago, Gary Dettling was Ren’s. Her colleagues then — and now — never knew. Paul Louderback never knew. Only a panel of senior FBI agents in Headquarters knew. Including Jeff Warwick and Tim Monahan.

‘Ren, come on,’ said Gary. ‘Please. This is not good. Please let me in.’

Ren waited, but he didn’t go away. She dragged herself to her knees and half crawled to the door. She managed to open it. Gary pushed in and locked it behind him. He knelt down beside her and took her in his arms. She let him.

When she calmed down, he finally spoke.

‘Your call, Ren. Can you do this?’

She looked up at him. ‘Yes.’

Ren sat again in front of Monahan and Warwick. She was wearing a fresh shirt that Gary had brought for her from the trunk of her Jeep.

‘I want to know,’ she said, ‘how Gavino Val Pando found me. Because I know Billy Waites had nothing to do with it.’

‘It was Domenica Val Pando’s minions that tracked you down,’ said Warwick.

Ren stood up and slammed her fists on the desk and shouted louder than even she expected.

‘I brought you Domenica Val Pando,’ she said. ‘You know the history. And in twenty-four hours, you blew it. And now that bitch … Jesus.’

No one spoke.

Ren held Tim Monahan’s stare. ‘I knew Domenica Val Pando like no other agent could have ever gotten to know her. I know the brand of strip wax her facialist uses on her. I know that, in spite of her cellulite, she wears only g-strings. Her plastic surgeon is French. I know who the real father of her son is. And after one memorable evening, I know what the inside of her fucking mouth tastes like and what her left hand feels like on my right breast — two details that may not have made it into my reports, but by your faces, are clearly working now to illustrate my point.’ She flung her arms in the air. ‘But what the fuck do I know?’

Monahan glanced down at his notes. ‘I will remind you why you needed to be removed for your own safety. Two boys, Enrique Caltano, Paulo Salinas — ’

The images returned, the faces swelled by humidity, the ugly, haunting looks. ‘Boys?’ said Ren. ‘Boys? Those boys were old enough to rape Domenica Val Pando, to hold me down and make me watch. Old enough to play drinking games to decide who would take me first. Old enough to toss a coin to work out which way. And old enough to be … stopped before they got the chance.’

‘You certainly stopped them.’

‘I certainly did,’ said Ren. ‘I certainly did not want to be raped. I certainly did not like how the coin fell. And I certainly remember being told when I trained for this job that no criminal was more important than the life of an agent.’

‘And you still think you shouldn’t have been pulled out?’

‘Yes — I still believe that,’ said Ren. ‘Everyone knows it was a fuck-up. Everyone. Not just me.’

‘They didn’t need to die,’ said Monahan.

‘Two of them were killed,’ said Ren. ‘Their buddy, the third guy, who arrived in as it was all over — he let me go. He told me to run. He had a gun, but he still let me go.’

Gary glanced at Monahan and back at Ren.

‘We had to pull you out, Ren,’ said Monahan. ‘We knew your life was in danger. We knew the rival gang was planning the attack on Val Pando’s compound.’

‘If you had informed me of that, I could have done something, I could have stayed, helped her to — ’

‘Ren,’ said Warwick, ‘even with all your skills, the skills that got you handed this assignment at such a young age in the first place, you were still there on the ground with a boot to your head while Domenica Val Pando was being raped. She was looking you in the eye. That is a psychological time bomb. If you stayed, that woman would have bonded with you and you with her so deeply — ’

Ren stood up. ‘Please, listen to me, all of you. Nobody deserves what happened to Domenica Val Pando that night. Nobody. But bond with her? No. Domenica Val Pando is a vile human being; a trafficker of women, children, drugs and arms, someone who was about to make a move into chem-bio to sell to the highest bidder, a person just … absent of anything. You cannot bond with that — ’

‘In a weakened psychological state — ’ said Monahan.

‘Nobody listened to me!’ said Ren. ‘You cannot bond with something that is constantly mutating. But if you’re really good? You can fake it. But nobody listened. All you need for evil to triumph is that good men don’t fucking listen.’

‘We were concerned for your safety and your sanity …’ said Monahan.

‘Sanity is bullshit.’

Gary could smile because no one was looking at him.

‘I’m serious,’ said Ren. ‘People prize sanity because of how much they fear insanity. Sanity is like happiness; it comes, it goes, it feels good, it means one thing to me, something else to someone else, but, boy, do we all want it. So bad. It’s what keeps people showing up in shrinks’ offices every day all over the world. It’s like paying a weekly subscription to the Sanity Club. And all that happens there is a lot of talk. Well, screw that. It’s all wrapped up in negativity. And losing: lose your grip, lose the plot, lose perspective. Do I seem like a loser to you guys?’

‘Calm down, Ren,’ said Gary. ‘Sit down.’

‘The fuck I will.’

‘Come on,’ said Gary. ‘Sit down. No one thinks you’re a loser.’

Ren sat down and let her head hang. She ran her fingers through her hair and looked up. ‘I’m sorry, OK? I didn’t realize I still … I’m … Bottom line? You really fucked me over. I left Domenica Val Pando, violated by two different men in many different ways, lying with her seven-year-old son in their own waste, both their screams carrying through the trees behind me as I ran. The last thing she saw of me was my sweat-soaked back in my white Donna Karan silk shirt. And because of you, we never saw each other again. To Domenica Val Pando, I had been physically there to kill those guys, but I deserted her emotionally when it mattered most. I was so fucking good, you assholes, that it probably broke her fucking heart.’

Warwick paused. ‘Do you recognize this man?’ He threw down a color photo on the table, a Latino in his early twenties.

‘The third guy,’ said Ren. ‘The one who let me get away.’

Warwick nodded. ‘Mario LaQuestra.’

Warwick threw down another photo; a naked corpse, black, bloated and stripped of any way of identifying gender, race or age. Ren looked up at Warwick.

‘Him again,’ said Warwick. ‘The first photo is from ten years ago, taken around the time of the rape. He was, in fact, twenty-eight years old, but looked younger, like the other boys. Second photo? Taken one month ago, when his body was found. He had probably been dead six months. He had been tortured. They left a nice snuff movie behind.’

Ren’s face was impassive.

‘He was an agent, Ren,’ said Monahan.

‘What?’

‘Mario LaQuestra was Agent Maurice Gallardo, worked out of the Nevada office.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Ren.

‘He was deep cover with the gang that stormed Val Pando’s that night. Like you, he got out of the undercover program shortly afterwards, but he left the Bureau. He was working as an accountant. But they caught up with him.’

Ren could feel her stomach tightening. ‘Did he know ten years ago that I was an agent?’

‘Yes,’ said Warwick. ‘He was informed before he went in. That’s how he knew to let you go.’

‘And … he was tortured six months ago …’ said Ren. ‘So they could find out about me.’

‘Yes,’ said Warwick. ‘I’m afraid so.’