“They’ve probably got precise GPS coordinates that’ll put them right on top of the containers,” Lucas said. “The Coast Guard thinks the containers may have some kind of proximity device—push a button on a transceiver and it sends out a locator beep. That’s what they tell me, anyway.”
“Huh. What do you think you could do? You’re not a diver, you don’t know shit about submarines or GPS. If the feds . . .”
Lucas said, “Your friend bought two slices of pizza.”
Virgil: “When I went by there, the pizza was so hot the cheese was bubbling . . . What’s she doing now?”
“Staring at you. Carrying the pizza to her table . . . Okay, she’s sitting down. She’s eating the pizza. Still staring.”
“It’s creeping me out,” Virgil said.
“It’s creeping me out and I’m not even you,” Lucas said.
Virgil wrenched the conversation back to the heroin dump. “What could you do down in Lauderdale? Other than get out of Minnesota in November?”
“What could I do? That’s what I’ve been thinking about,” Lucas said. “The FBI doesn’t do confrontation. We need some confrontation to shake things up. Push people around. Deal some get-out-of-jail cards in return for information. Street-cop stuff. Find out who gets upset.”
“You’re gonna do it?”
“I dunno. Those meatheads at the FBI . . .” Lucas stroked his chin with a thumb and forefinger, staring past Virgil, not at the woman, but at the blank wall to one side. Virgil let him stare, uninterrupted. Then, abruptly, Lucas looked back at Virgil and said, “Yeah. I’m gonna do it.”
“Good. Nice to see an older guy have a hobby . . . What’s she doing now?”
“Finishing the pizza,” Lucas said. “She’s still staring, though. She looks really tense. She’s fumbling in her purse . . .” Lucas backed his chair up a few inches, so he could clear his gun if need be. “She’s got a . . .”
“What?”
“. . . ChapStick.”
“ChapStick?”
“Yeah, you know, for chapped lips,” Lucas said.
Virgil leaned back in his chair. “Wait: I gotta change my underwear for a ChapStick?”
* * *
That evening, Lucas’s wife, Weather, took their two children-at-home to the Mall of America. When they got home, carrying shopping bags and wearing pleased expressions, Lucas had spread the FBI files around the den and was looking at U.S. Senator Christopher Colles of Florida on his iMac screen, a FaceTime call.
“My daughter’s husband is a commander in the Coast Guard and these boys were like family to them,” Colles said. “Elmer and Porter say you’re my best shot.” Elmer was Elmer Henderson, Porter was Porter Smalls, both U.S. senators from Minnesota.
“I’ve looked at the files and I’m interested, Senator,” Lucas said. “Would you know the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida?”
“Sure do, she’s one of my crew. Anna Rubio. Can she help you out?”
“When I go in on something like this, maybe with a couple other marshals, we don’t have the investigative abilities of the FBI . . . the research abilities, the surveillance teams, the personnel. What we do is we go in and kick things over, make some offers that some bad people can’t refuse. The FBI doesn’t do that. We won’t do anything illegal, you understand, but I might need backup from the U.S. attorney. Or an assistant U.S. attorney, who carries the water for the boss.”
“Give me an example of what you’re talking about.”
“Maybe a get-out-of-jail card for a relative,” Lucas said. “Not for murder, but for like a mid-level drug deal. Maybe somebody’s got two more years to serve on a ten-year sentence, they get an early parole. Maybe we catch somebody with an ounce of cocaine and instead of waving him off, the U.S. attorney talks tough to him and his attorney . . .”
“Sounds fine to me,” Colles said. “I’ll call up Anna and tell her you’ll be in touch. Give me a call once in a while and tell me how you’re doing.”
“I will do that,” Lucas said.
* * *
When he got off the call, he saw Weather standing in the doorway with crossed arms. “So you’re going?”
“Looks like it. Are you going to give me a hard time?”
“No. It’s what you do, but you’ve got to be here for Thanksgiving,” she said. “Letty’s coming and there’ll be some parties that weekend. You should plan to be back that whole Thanksgiving week.” Letty was their adult adoptive daughter, about to graduate from Stanford University with a master’s degree in economics.
“I can do that,” Lucas said. Thanksgiving was almost a month away. “By then I should have a handle on the situation.”
* * *
After talking with Weather, Lucas called Bob Matees, a marshal with the service’s Special Operations Group.
“Taken you a while to get back,” Bob said. “We sent that stuff to you a month ago. More than a month.”
“Homeland Security and the Justice Department have been arm wrestling over jurisdiction and decided to split the difference,” Lucas said. “We’re allowed to monitor and assist the investigation, but the FBI keeps the lead.”
Bob said, “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means we’re in, if we want to be. We might have to go to some meetings, but basically, we’ll be on our own.”
“You and me?”
“And Rae.”
“Rae’s out for the time being,” Bob said. “Her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer last week and Rae’s taken leave and gone home. She’ll be there until the docs figure out a treatment program.”
“Her mom gonna die?” Lucas asked.
“That’s not what the docs are saying, but it’s serious. The treatment is gonna be tough. She’s at MD Anderson in Houston, so that’s good.”
“All right. Let’s stay in touch with her,” Lucas said. “I’m thinking we get down to Fort Lauderdale in the next few days . . . the task force is working out of a hotel off I-95.”
“How many guys?” Bob asked.
“A dozen FBI agents, representatives from the Miami-Dade cops, Broward sheriff’s department, Fort Lauderdale cops, and Homeland Security—Homeland Security is the Coast Guard. We’ll be the last guys through the door.”