Blood in the Water Read online

  She was picking her way through the giant piles of earth and construction material, alert to every sound and every movement, her heart pounding and her breath coming in desperate, shallow gulps she struggled to control.

  As she came around a corner where two piles of gravel intersected, she sensed movement – feeling rather than seeing it – and spun and ducked at the same time, her arms coming up with her gun, aiming it toward the gravel.

  The pain was exquisite as the heavy metal connected with her forearm, and the gun went off as it was knocked from her hands. She could hear shouts from the tactical squad, and she knew they would be there to help in a matter of seconds, but it wasn’t clear that she would survive those seconds. Carpio was raising the rebar above his head again, looking into her eyes, aiming for her forehead. He was moving forward awkwardly, as though unsteady on his feet, his own eyes cold and calculating. The thought to punch at him flashed through her mind, but she wasn’t sure whether her arm was broken. It was too cold, and the pain was too acute to know. Instead she swept her left leg forward, aiming to take his feet out from under him. She hoped that he would lose his balance and that would disrupt his aim enough to prevent him from shattering her skull.

  The impact, though, was far more effective than she anticipated. Her shin connected with his right ankle, and his cold, calculating eyes went wide with pain and fury. Carpio let out a scream like a wounded animal, and he swung the rebar wildly as he toppled over. He hit the ground just to the left of her, and she knew that her advantage would be short-lived. She lashed out with her left elbow, driving it into his face, satisfied with the dull crunching sound she heard as his nose snapped.

  The shouts from the tactical team were close now, and she got to her feet. Her gun was a few feet away, and she grabbed it with her left hand. Carpio was on all fours, spitting blood into the ground, and she stepped to him and kicked him hard in the ribs, flipping him over. He looked up at her, and the hatred in his eyes was unmistakable. ‘Whore!’ he screamed at her.

  She kicked him again in the ribs and he coughed out blood. ‘You don’t know me well enough to call me that,’ she said. With the dexterity of a seasoned professional, she grabbed one of his wrists and slapped a cuff tight to it. He grunted in pain, and that gave her some satisfaction. She pulled his other wrist behind his back and snapped on the other cuff. Then she grabbed him by the front of his jacket. ‘Get up,’ she ordered. He struggled to his feet, favoring his right side as she leaned him against a stack of rebar.

  His face was a mess, his nose twisted, but his tattooed eyes had cleared and they stared at her with a malice she had seen before. She supposed it matched her own toward him.

  The tactical team was there now, assault rifles out, body armor bulging, eyes vigilant. And as they regarded the scene – Carpio bloodied and cuffed and cowed – a few of them tittered.

  ‘Nice job, Special Agent,’ one of them said. ‘Looks like we didn’t need the heavy artillery, all we needed was a pissed-off chick with a badge.’ Several of the others laughed.

  It was intended less as a compliment to her than as an insult to her prisoner. And it was clear that the slight had landed effectively. Carpio’s bloodied face twisted in uncontrollable rage.

  ‘You will all pay!’ he screamed. ‘You will pay for what you have done to my people!’

  One of the tactical guys shook his head. ‘Shit, he actually talks like that, huh?’

  Kit nodded. ‘He does.’ She stepped forward, so that her face was less than a foot in front of Carpio’s. ‘Sorry to spoil your plans, Vincente.’

  And then a strange thing happened … Carpio smiled.

  ‘Don’t worry, Special Agent,’ he said through a heavy accent. ‘You have not spoiled my plans. I can’t be stopped. You should know that by now.’

  There was something about the look on his face that sent a fresh wave of rage and hatred through her. It was like she was losing her son all over again – as though no matter what she did to push back the tide of grief she had fought for half a decade, human trash like Carpio could bring it back, like a tsunami that washed away the emotional fortifications she had constructed to protect herself.

  Before she realized what was happening, she brought her knee up hard and fast between Carpio’s legs. His cheeks plumed and his face went a dark shade of purple. His right leg buckled, and he crumpled to the ground at her feet with a loud groan.

  One of the tactical officers behind her laughed. ‘Jesus, Special Agent. Remind me not to get on your bad side.’

  Five

  Friday 18 January

  ‘Special Agent Steele, welcome to FMC Devens.’

  Warden Stevens was a soft, round man with prodigious jowls and sympathetic eyes. Kit could imagine no one better suited to put on a fake white beard and red suit and hand out gifts to children at an office Christmas party. She questioned, though, whether he was the right sort to guard truly hardened men.

  The Federal Medical Center was forty minutes west of Boston, nestled in a suburban enclave where upper middle-class families bustled through their lives without giving a thought to the criminals housed in their midst. Nor did the facility provide any real external reminders. The place was neat and clean, and there were no barbed wire fences in view from the outside. It was split into two parts. One half housed a federal minimum security prison where tax cheats and Wall Street bandits played chess and made macramé hats for their hedge-fund friends, who would welcome them back to the financial world in six to eighteen months with there-but-for-the-grace-of-God nods and shrugs. The other half housed prisoners who required medical care or special attention. It had been designed to accommodate prisoners at every level of risk, from minimum security up through SuperMax. Steele had read all of this on the FMC Devens website, which proudly advertised the humanity with which all prisoners were treated.

  Warden Stevens led Steele through the administrative building, which looked more like an educational facility than a prison. ‘It’s good of you to come all the way out here to check on Mr Carpio. I understand you were the one who took him into custody?’

  ‘That’s right. Both times.’

  ‘The first time was on a raid, correct?’

  Kit nodded. ‘I’ve been working to cut into MS-13 for the last three years.’

  ‘Yes, from what I understand, you have quite a reputation among the gang community. They even have a nickname for you. I’m told they call you the Hunter. Why is that?’

  ‘I’m good at my job.’

  ‘Mr Carpio certainly has a great deal of animosity toward you. How did you catch him the first time?’

  ‘Dumb luck, really. We found one of their hangouts and raided it for drugs and weapons. He was there, and we picked him up. We didn’t know at the time who he was. He had no papers, and he didn’t show up in the system, so we handed him over to ICE. He was going to be deported.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Somebody screwed up.’

  Stevens frowned. ‘His escape was unfortunate.’

  ‘Particularly for the eight people he killed afterwards. Since then, we’ve connected him to more than a dozen killings over the past few years.’

  Stevens nodded grimly. ‘As I say, it was unfortunate.’ His reassuring smile returned. ‘Of course, that had nothing to do with this facility, and such an escape could never happen here.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. Here we have the most stringent SuperMax medical containment protocols in existence, and the most modern incarceration equipment available. He is halfway through the orientation program, and throughout that he is monitored constantly. There is a video feed to his cell, so that even when he is asleep, there is at least one guard who can monitor him at all times. There is no way that he could get out of here.’

  ‘Can anyone get in?’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand your question, Special Agent Steele. Why would anyone want to get in?’

  They were at his office now, and he led her in. It was neat
and organized and the furniture was solid, though not ostentatious. It was an office that any high school principal or university provost would have found completely adequate.

  ‘Vincente Carpio has a dedicated and inspired group of followers, Warden. He’s an enforcer in MS-13’s army. That means you need to consider the possibility that they will attack from the outside in an attempt to get him out of here.’

  Stevens waved a hand at her dismissively as he sat behind his desk. ‘They would have to be crazy to attempt such a thing.’ His eyes maintained a confident glint.

  ‘They are crazy,’ Steele said. She reached into the satchel she’d brought with her and took out two manila folders. She opened one and put it in front of Stevens. It contained a series of color photographs from the crime scene where Carpio’s most recent victims had been found. Steele pointed to the first picture. ‘This is from the last crime scene,’ she said. ‘There were eight of them. Their heads were found in another room.’

  In the image, the bodies were kneeling, their hands tied together behind their backs, the ropes tied to their ankles so the bodies would stay on their knees, hunched forward but upright nonetheless. The chests and backs were black with dried blood, and the stumps of their necks still looked damp. In the center of four of those stumps, vertebrae gleamed white.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Stevens whispered.

  ‘Christ had nothing to do with it, I can assure you.’ Steele pointed to one of the bodies. ‘By the time they were found, rigor had set it, so the bodies had to be transported in sacks. They wouldn’t even stay on the coroner’s gurney. We had to have the loved ones identify the clothing so we could match up the heads with the bodies. Even then, it wasn’t easy. Have you ever seen a human head after the blood has been drained from it?’

  Stevens shook his head, but didn’t look up.

  ‘It’s hard to recognize. The skin sags and the features become muddled. Our coroners are good, but there were still a couple we had to use DNA with to make sure we weren’t putting the heads with the wrong bodies.’ Steele walked over to the window and gazed out on the rolling grass in what would have seemed a suburban paradise, had she not had a complete understanding of the evil that was in the immediate vicinity. ‘You understand why I’m showing these pictures to you, don’t you, Warden?’

  Stevens still didn’t pick up his head to look at her. ‘No,’ he whispered.

  ‘Because you need to understand who we are dealing with. You have to understand what we are dealing with. We are dealing with pure evil. He’s a psychopath. I’ve caught him twice, but he’s escaped once. I’m not going to let that happen again. Do you understand?’

  He finally looked up at her, and to her relief the confidence and reassurance was gone from his eyes. Their place had been taken by fear and revulsion. That made her feel better, and gave her some hope that he might have a grasp of the seriousness of his task. He nodded. ‘I understand.’

  ‘Good. Now, I’d like to go over your security procedures.’

  Six

  Thursday 31 January

  Two weeks after the recapture of Vincente Carpio, the historic freeze still gripped Boston. The morning sun crawled into view over the waterfront. At six thirty, the thin light promised no respite from the New England winter. A slate sky met the ashen sea on the horizon as though in conspiracy to chill the bones of those who dared to make their living on the water. It was still dark enough that the inside light shone through the crack in the door from the small, run-down warehouse at the water’s edge in East Boston where six men had gathered.

  T’phong Soh studied the man across the table from him. The last few days’ travel showed on the man’s face; the lines were etched deep, the weariness apparent. The eyes were still sharp, though – sharp enough that Soh knew not to test him.

  Physically, the two had nothing in common. Soh was small and thin, with a broad, shallow nose and pale Southeast Asian skin. His hair was cropped close, his scalp visible. His twenty-four-year-old face was hairless, the smooth skin marred only by the neck tattoos that strayed unevenly above the jawline.

  Javier Carpio was well over six feet tall, heavyset, with hands the size of bear claws. His forehead fought a losing battle with the massive tangles of his long black hair, tinged with grey, which fell around an aquiline face that hinted at his Amerindian ancestry. His eyebrows were so thick they reminded Soh of the underbrush of some great jungle.

  ‘Drink?’ Soh offered.

  ‘Yes,’ his guest said. ‘Tequila.’

  Soh nodded to one of his men.

  Two shot glasses and a bottle were swiftly placed on the grooved table between them. Javier poured a single shot, picked it up and threw it down his throat. He put the shot glass back on the table and filled both his and Soh’s. Soh picked his glass up, his eyes never leaving those of the man across the table. They both drank.

  Javier Carpio stared at him for a long moment before he spoke again. ‘The routes are set,’ he said finally. ‘The supply is limitless. Two directions. One from our friends in Colombia to your people in California, the other from Afghanistan, across land to the Mediterranean, here to your port of Boston.’

  Soh glanced out through the grime-caked window toward the water. The warehouse that served as his headquarters sat by a small pier at the northern edge of East Boston. It was a convenient place from which to operate on a limited scale, but there was little doubt that a larger, more suitable location would have to be found if the plan were to move forward. ‘Price and quality?’

  ‘As discussed.’ The man poured two more shots.

  ‘And the leadership?’

  They were both captains in MS-13, one of the most dangerous criminal gangs in the world. They knew that doing business behind the backs of their superiors was risky, and would result in death if discovered before they could finish their plans.

  ‘They will be informed in good time,’ Javier said. ‘This is a deal that I offer to you as an individual. To strengthen you as well as the organization.’

  ‘We have a deal, then.’ Soh said.

  The man shook his head. ‘Not yet. There is one thing that you must do before we are agreed.’

  Soh patiently folded his hands in front of him on the table. In his experience, people always wanted something more.

  ‘My younger brother,’ Carpio said.

  Soh frowned. ‘His situation is a great offense to you, no doubt.’

  ‘It is,’ Javier agreed. ‘It is a great offense to all of us, and it must be rectified. We are putting together a plan, and we need assistance along the shore. You are our representative here. Can you help us?’

  ‘An escape?’ Soh frowned. ‘It would be virtually impossible.’

  ‘Virtually, perhaps. But he is my brother. Besides, with the right weapons and the right plan, anything is possible.’

  Soh considered the request, and chose his words carefully. ‘There are those in the leadership who question your brother’s sanity. I do not agree with them, of course. But an escape attempt would be violent and would bring the full anger of the police.’

  ‘It would,’ Carpio agreed. He stared at Soh without saying anything else.

  Soh massaged his chin, considering the request. If he could close the deal that had been proposed, he would be one of the most powerful criminals in the country. He could take over Boston Harbor. ‘There is a man we would need to involve. He is not one of our people.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A local who controls the harbor. If he finds out, and we have not included him, he will be a problem.’

  Carpio shook his head. ‘No, we cannot involve another.’

  ‘He has many eyes on the water,’ Soh said. ‘He will know.’

  ‘Will he cooperate?’

  Soh shrugged. ‘There is no way to know with him. He follows a code from days that have passed. It makes him difficult to predict.’

  ‘Then he must not be told. This is too important. He must be removed.’

  Soh again chose
his words carefully. ‘That will be difficult,’ he said. ‘What is the timing?’

  ‘Two weeks, Wednesday.’

  ‘To remove this man so quickly,’ Soh said, shaking his head. ‘It will require great sacrifice.’

  ‘To sacrifice in the service of our cause is an honor,’ Carpio said. He poured two more shots and pushed one toward Soh. He lifted his in toast, to drive the point home. Soh sat motionless. ‘Do you not agree?’

  Soh levelled his eyes at Javier Carpio. ‘We are no longer talking about our cause – as in the organization. We are talking about our cause – yours and mine. This is a dangerous discussion.’

  The man frowned. ‘And yet you are having it.’

  ‘I am. But there are those who are higher up who have reservations about your brother.’

  ‘He is a soldier!’ Javier bellowed, slamming his huge fist on the table.

  ‘He is,’ Soh agreed. ‘But he is also a psychopath.’ Soh leaned forward and put a hand on Javier’s in a reassuring gesture. ‘For good reason, and I have no problem with his actions. But there are those in the organization who believe that he has gone too far. To free him without agreement from our superiors will be viewed as an act of disobedience. When you add that to the independent deal we are talking about, it will be viewed as revolt.’

  Javier put his glass back down on the table. ‘What do you propose?’

  ‘The same terms as discussed, but my payment at ninety per cent. That will ensure that I will have the funds to organize my men in case I am attacked by our superiors.’

  ‘And you will guarantee my brother’s safety?’

  ‘With my life.’

  Carpio raised his glass again. ‘Then our cause will truly be served.’ The two of them drank. ‘When will you move against this local boss?’

  ‘Tonight.’

  Javier Carpio looked startled. ‘So soon? Do you not need to plan?’

  Soh looked out the window again. Steam was coming off the frozen water, hovering low and fragile along the surface in the frigid air. ‘I have a plan,’ he said.