Designated Target (John Taylor #9) - Chapter 1

Trenton, New Jersey

“Three cards,” Jacob Dolan said, laying three cards face down on the cheap table between him and his partner.

“Why always three? Seriously. You have to be throwing away decent cards to do that every single hand, or you’re the most unlucky son of a bitch that’s ever lived. Or, you keep throwing away decent hands fishing for a straight. But you’re not that dumb, are you?”

“Just deal the cards and shut up,” Dolan said again, not wanting to repeat the conversation they’d already had three times.

His partner, however, wasn’t going to be deterred.

“You’ve lost, what, five hands in a row? Change the strategy, my man. I mean, even dumb odds say you have three of a kind or a couple of low pairs at some point, right? Not even you are dumb enough to throw away something like that ’cause you think you might pull a straight.”

Both of the men at the table practically screamed ‘cop’ to anyone who’d seen them, in their cheap suits, comfortable shoes, and a slight bulge in the side of their jackets made by shoulder-worn side-arms.

“Do the two of you ever shut up?” the third man in the room said.

Angelo Bartolini was a stark contrast to the other two men. Where their suits were off the rack and poorly fitted, his had clearly been tailored and the material didn’t look rough and itchy like the cops’ suits. Even without the suit jacket, which was on the bed next to him, you could almost smell the money on him.

Everything else about him was just as well put together, from the slicked back, expertly styled hair to the highly shined leather shoes. The only thing that didn’t fit this well-put-together look was the five-o’clock shadow and the dark circles under his eyes.

“Nope,” Dolan said, not even bothering to look his way. “You don’t like it, feel free to go take a stroll in the parking lot. I’m sure your buddies won’t whack you while you’re getting some fresh air.”

“Fuck you,” Angelo said, but didn’t get up and didn’t say anything else about the bickering.

The two cops played a couple more hands, and then gave up. Neither had really been focused on their game, and they were just doing something to keep their hands busy, and give them a reason to argue.

“So what’s the deal, anyway?” Dolan asked turning to the man on the bed. “Why’d you decide to suddenly roll on your bosses like you did?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Angelo said, not bothering to look at Dolan.

“You think you’re the first mobster we’ve had in here, waiting to testify. Trust me, I’ve heard it all. So what, they were about to pop you? You guys always have fancy lawyers and do pretty easy time, so it can’t be to avoid jail time. It’s not like you were a hitter up on murder charges and looking at the needle or anything.”

“’Cause it ain’t like the old days when, if you stayed loyal to the family, they stayed loyal to you. It’s like the rest of the country, once they’re done with you, they’d rather throw you away than put any more money into you than they have to, except if they think you know too much, they’re gonna make sure you don’t have a chance to talk.”

“Yeah, I guess. It’s not like … “

Whatever Angelo was going to say next was never finished as the back of his head exploded, painting the off-white motel wall in brains and blood. Both cops reacted fast, pulling their weapons and dropping to the floor almost instantly, not that it, or anything, mattered to Angelo anymore. His body slid sideways against the wall, leaving a gory streak in its wake until he fell off the bed, his body making a thumping sound as it hit the floor.

“Did you hear anything?” Dolan asked, looking around the room, trying to identify where the shot had even come from.

“Not a thing,” his partner said, and crawled forward on the carpet, staying as low as possible. “Look.”

Dolan looked up at the curtain his partner had just moved aside, exposing the window with a very large hole in it, cracks spidering in all directions. For a moment, Dolan wondered how the window hadn’t just shattered entirely. Maybe it was one of those things where the bullet passed through at just the right angle to leave a hole and not break it entirely, not that it mattered. Bartolini was dead on their watch.

Nothing much else mattered.

***

Washington D.C.

“Jesus Christ!”

Taylor looked up as the front door opened and a cursing Whitaker came waddling through the door. She was in one of the several maternity pants suits she’d gotten when she decided she still wanted to go into the office every day instead of working from home, despite being permitted to do so when she hit the final month of her pregnancy.

“Problems?” He asked, only setting aside what he was working on, but not getting up yet to go help her.

Normally, Taylor would have been on his feet to check on his wife, but over the last few months, he’d learned to be a bit more cautious with her. Her mood fluctuated wildly. Sometimes she wanted him to be Johnny on the spot when she was having problems and other times she was pissed he had the audacity to suggest she couldn’t do things on her own.

He’d given up trying to predict which Whitaker he was going to get at any given moment, so he’d settled on a safe third option, attentive probing from a distance. It still had the chance to get him yelled at if the mood struck her, but less so than options A and B.

“The car service couldn’t get me to the front door because of construction at the front of the street and had to drop me at the end of the block. My ankles feel like they’re going to burst.”

Since she’d insisted on still going into work but couldn’t drive, Joe Solomon, the director of the FBI and their boss, had sprung for a car service to pick her up and bring her back. Taylor had come back home from an assignment the night before and had offered to take her into the office, but she liked her routines and declined any special treatment.

“Do you want to come sit down and put your feet up?”

“Do you want to bite me?”

“I’m not sure how that’ll help, but if you insist,” he said, half rising until she chuckled, waving him back down.

“Fine, fine. Yes. I do want to put my feet up. My ankles feel like they’ve swollen to the size of watermelons and I think my spine’s about to crack in half.”

Finally getting permission to help, he assisted her down into the soft, cushiony chair they’d moved into the living room specifically for this reason, a task that was easier said than done, since even with his help she had to kind of lean to the side and roll into the chair instead of sitting straight back like she would have when she wasn’t almost nine months pregnant.

“Heating pad?” Taylor asked as he helped pull off her shoes.

“You’re a good man,” she said, flopping her head back and letting out a weary sigh. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”

Taylor just shook his head as he got up and went to their bedroom where she’d left the heating pad last. The further into the pregnancy she’d gotten, the more Jekyll and Hyde she’d gotten. Although he hadn’t had a lot of experience with pregnant women, he knew not to take it seriously. Whitaker was one of the most level-headed people he knew, when her body wasn’t swimming in hormones, and she often apologized to make sure he knew she didn’t actually hate him.

“You really should just start working from home. You’ve been approved to start maternity leave since you’re this close to your due date, and Joe would understand.”

“I will soon. I just have a couple of files I want to close out before the baby comes and I’m out for six weeks.”

“I’ve seen those files, and there’s nothing in them one of the other agents can’t take care of. You just hate the idea of that place running okay without you.”

“No, I hate the idea of how much all of my hard work is going to get screwed up when I’m not there looking over their shoulders.”

“Control freak,” he said, with a smile so she knew he was kidding.

She just shrugged and settled into the heating pad.

“You might be right, though. I’m the size of a fucking house. Just walking down the hall feels like I’ve run a marathon.”

“So you’ll switch to working from here until the baby comes?” he asked, hopefully.

They’d had this conversation a dozen times already, and this was the first time she’d admitted, even grudgingly, that she might not be able to keep going as if nothing had changed.

“Soon,” she said, and then held up a hand to keep the snarky comment she knew was coming at bay. “I know, I know, I keep saying that, but I mean it this time. I just can’t keep lugging this baby around.”

“You realize we have years left of lugging her around,” Taylor said.

Whitaker gave him a look, partly because he knew what she meant and partly because, even though she’d decided she didn’t want to know the sex of the baby before it was born, he’d decided it was going to be a girl and had insisted on saying it whenever they talked about the baby.

“Don’t you have your thing to go to?”

“I do, but I can cancel if you need me here. He’ll understand and I’m not actually there to do anything other than offer moral support.”

Despite their bickering, she reached out and softly held his hand. He knew she loved him, but physical touch had never been part of her love language, until she hit her second trimester. Since then, even when they were fighting, she always wanted to hold his hand or sit in a way where she was leaning against him. Not that he minded. He actually found he liked it, although it made him even more reluctant to leave.

“Go, go,” she said, finally letting go of his hand. “You’re bothering me.”

He smiled and shook his head as the old Whitaker showed back up. The woman was a whirlwind, but at least things never got boring with her.

***

Taylor made his way down to Main Justice, which is what most of the agents in the FBI called the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice building. Although Taylor wouldn’t call it that where anyone other than Whitaker could hear him, mostly out of stubbornness, he hadn’t been able to keep the nickname out of his head.

The good part about his work with the FBI was being able to flash his badge and get through the security in the lobby without much hassle. Although he hadn’t been here very often, since Joe Solomon didn’t like to remind people that Taylor worked for him, the building was well labeled, allowing him to weave his way through hallways until he found the conference room he was looking for. Inside was an Assistant US Attorney whom Taylor could never remember, a DOD lawyer, and Rodolfo Lopez, a young ex-marine who’d been a member of a private military contractor sent on an ill-fated mission to retrieve defense contractors being held captive by a Somali warlord.

Lopez had gotten shot up on the poorly planned and even worse executed rescue mission and Taylor had barely been able to drag the young man away before the rest of his team got shot to hell. Taylor managed to get him extracted with the help of some friendly locals before finishing the rescue mission himself, but that didn’t end Lopez’s journey. Far from it.

After getting back home and going through almost six months of recovery and physical therapy, he also had the legal ramifications to think about. The founder and CEO of White Mountain Security, along with multiple members of their board and several executives from the defense contractor Northbridge, all ended up getting indicted for either playing a part in the attempted theft and sale of classified hardware or assisting in the cover-up that happened afterward, which included the mission Taylor had managed to wedge his way into. Taylor was in the clear thanks to his work with the local CIA station in thwarting the attempt to kill the hostages and erase any trace of the attempted theft, making his involvement semi-official.

Lopez, as an actual, if junior, member of the team tasked with the cover-up, wasn’t so lucky. Taylor had gotten to know the younger man somewhat from the early stages of the mission and during his recovery, and was convinced he’d been ignorant of what was going on. Unfortunately, a long series of bad luck, including career suicide for standing up for what was right despite the repercussions to his career, plagued him, setting him up as a potential scapegoat for Northbridge and what was left of White Mountain.

Taylor had done what he could to help Lopez, but there were limits to the favors he could call in or people he could talk to. Several of the now-indicted targets of the investigation were politically connected, making Justice second guess anyone stepping forward on a suspect’s behalf and making it political kryptonite for anyone that might try to get involved. Taylor, who was as apolitical as they came, didn’t much care about his own future with Justice or the FBI, but it limited him in seeking the help of people he’d have otherwise been able to turn to, including the President who owed him all number of favors by this point.

Luckily, Whitaker was smarter at the game than Taylor and knew enough of the players to advise him to just be supportive and hang back. She knew and trusted the investigators to make the right call in the end. Today was the day he found out if she’d been right, and he’d promised Lopez he’d be there to support him.

Although not something normally allowed, the DOJ investigators and lawyers had okayed Taylor’s participation in the final meeting, which did suggest that Whitaker had been right, because if they did plan on charging Lopez, they’d have done it one-hundred percent by the book to keep their prosecution from being overturned.

Taylor knew a few of the investigators, having met them on unassociated cases, and shook hands with everyone, trying to be as friendly as possible, which everyone knew was out of character for him, but felt like the right thing to do since he was there as Lopez’s informal advocate. Greetings made, Taylor took a seat against a wall off to the side, away from the official proceedings, since he couldn’t be part of those.

“We appreciate you coming in to speak with us, Mr. Lopez,” the lead investigator said as he sat across from the kid and kicked off the proceedings. “I want to remind you that it is your right to have a lawyer present at this meeting.”

“Like I said last time, I didn’t do anything wrong and I don’t need a lawyer.”

Taylor had learned enough about the US judicial system to know that was absolutely not true and he’d tried to advise Lopez numerous times to get himself one, but the kid had always refused. In spite of everything that had happened to him, he was still one of those true believers who thought the government was always there to protect you.

“That is, of course, your choice. We have finished our investigations into the events surrounding the White Mountain security and its actions to retrieve hostages being held in Somalia this past May. After interviewing survivors of the actions and looking into White Mountain’s records, we have decided, to not pursue additional legal action against you at this time.”

“Really?” Lopez asked, almost hopping out of his seat.

“Yes, although I want to make sure you understand that we maintain the option to reinstate charges against you, should additional facts come to light or you become involved in other questionable activities.”

“I understand,” Lopez said.

Lopez gave a side glance to Taylor again, but Taylor still didn’t respond. It was a bullshit point to make, but he’d known enough DOJ guys that would push an investigation well past the point where it should have been dropped, simply because they felt disrespected, so the worst thing he could do was point out how hollow the threat was.

Unless they were forced to by a judge or by statute, they’d never fully dismiss a case, even when every piece of evidence was against them. Guys like this lived and died by their records, and if they kept a case ‘officially open’ they didn’t have to put it in the loss column. He’d looked at what they had against Lopez. They didn’t have enough to get past the grand jury phase, which meant they’d never refile charges unless their egos got hurt, so this was just posturing.

He’d warned the kid they’d say this beforehand, but he didn’t blame him for being nervous hearing what could be taken as a threat, rather than simple ass-covering.

They spent the next hour walking Lopez through the agreement and having him sign off on a bunch of things. Taylor didn’t say anything, but he did pay attention just in case the lawyers tried to pull a fast one and get him to sign off on something that could come back and bite him, which Taylor had also seen them do. Thankfully, these guys were less of assholes than some of the others he’d dealt with, and everything was on the up and up.

Lopez was practically bouncing off the walls as they left the offices and headed back down towards the parking garages.

“Man, I can’t believe it’s over. I thought for sure they were going to try and hang the whole thing on me,” Lopez said as the elevator doors closed.

“Don’t fool yourself; I’m pretty sure Northbridge would have if they thought they could pull it off. Fortunately for you, since they couldn’t, getting this closed out quickly was the next best thing they could hope for.”

“Well, I still appreciate all the help. I’m not sure I would have had a clue how to get through this without you.”

“You could have hired a lawyer, who would have actually known what to do.”

“Man, fuck lawyers. Besides, I know you were the one who convinced the company to cover my medical bills. I owe you one.”

“Well, remember that when I call you for a favor,” Taylor said with the hint of a smile.

He’d done it because Lopez was a good kid and he hadn’t deserved what had happened to him in Somalia, but he wasn’t above having another person owe him a favor. In his line of work, it was always good to have more people in his back pocket when he needed them.

“So, what are you going to do now?” Taylor asked as they stepped out into the parking garage.

“I don’t really know. I don’t think I’m ever going to work for another contractor, that’s for sure. I’d kind of hoped it would be something like when I was still serving, since I missed it and all the guys were vets, but it really wasn’t. Or I guess it was like the service, but only the worst parts of it. To tell you the truth, I really don’t know what to do next. I joined up right out of high school and being a soldier is all I really wanted to do. The only thing I’m qualified to do now is flip burgers.”

“You know, there are other ways to get that life back without going to work for a PMC. You could do your own thing.”

“I don’t have the money or the know-how to do that.”

“I’m not talking about becoming a contractor yourself, but have you looked at personal protection? I know some guys who went into that after they got out of the service, and they really like it. You have the training for it, mostly, it doesn’t take a lot of money to get started, and you’ll be working for yourself, so you can pick your own clients.”

“I mean, that sounds good, but I don’t know. I’m not really a business kind of person, you know.”

Taylor nodded, but didn’t reply right away. He’d seen Lopez’s jacket and knew what the kid had trained for and done in the military. He was fairly positive that, if given the right motivation or support, Lopez was a lot more capable than he gave himself credit for. He just lacked the confidence to step outside of what he was comfortable with.

A thought that had been brewing in the back of Taylor’s mind started to take shape. It wasn’t fully formed and he’d need to actually put in the work to see if it was doable, but now that he thought about it, there was an opportunity here for both of them, if he could convince Lopez.

“You know, after I got out of the army and before I ended up contracting with the Bureau, I had my own thing set up doing private investigation and personal services, right?” Taylor said.

“What?” Lopez asked.

He didn’t blame the kid for being confused, since it had been a fairly random non-sequitur.

“I know the idea of starting your own thing is the hard part, and I think I might have a solution. I’ve been thinking of options for what I’m going to do when I don’t work with the Bureau anymore. I just kind of landed there by accident. Don’t get me wrong, there are parts of it I like, and I’m doing good work, but my position isn’t exactly what I’d call secure. I’m basically there by the goodwill of the director, and his tenure will be up in five years or so, less if the White House switches parties again, since there’s no real way to avoid my connections with the current administration.”

“That makes sense, but you can’t really do anything about that now, can you? Not while you’re still working with them, I mean.”

“I think I could, actually. I’m not an agent and I don’t really fall under a lot of the rules, although I wouldn’t want to taint any of the cases I’m working on by moonlighting. I do think I could get away with having my own thing on the side, however; especially if I’m not doing the day-to-day work.”

“Are you offering me a job?” Lopez asked, stopping in his tracks.

“I don’t know. I mean, not right away, since I’d need to talk to a few people and figure out how to pay for it, but if I wanted to switch out of working for the government, it’d be nice to have something already building up a client base, since that’s what you really need. If I did something like that, would you be …”

“Yes,” Lopez said before Taylor could finish asking the question.

Taylor laughed at his eager response and was about to say something else when his phone rang.

“Taylor, I need you to come in. We have a situation in New Jersey that I want you to deal with,” Joe Solomon said.