find out who hired them. Watson is probably the weakest link in that regard. I doubt you will be able to get anything out of the two hit men.”
“It sounds like you are planning on leaving?” Wang asked.
“We have to report back to Washington. We’ll catch up with you at the office later today,” Laney promised.
“Detective Spangle isn’t going to be happy about this,” Wang replied. “We have a good working relationship with the SFPD. This isn’t going to help maintain that.”
“I’m sorry, but there is something else we have to do, and at the moment, it takes priority. We’ll be available to answer his questions later once Washington gives us approval to do so. Explain that to him for us.”
Special Agent Nick Morely who hadn’t said much since the two FBI agents had arrived, suddenly spoke up. He looked directly at Jake.
“You’re Bob Trask?” he asked. “I was trying to remember where I heard the name. You were in Washington during that terrorist thing a couple of months ago. I was there at the time. You’re the guy who some people say knows in advance what is going to happen, aren’t you?”
Jake looked at Morely in surprise. Quickly he gathered his wits and replied, “I’m sorry, but that’s ridiculous. I wasn’t in Washington when that went down.”
“Explain to Detective Spangle we had to leave,” Laney said, as he and Jake headed toward their car.
Chapter 21
Special Agent Alisha Wang watched as the rental car carrying the two Washington based agents disappeared up the ramp to the surface streets of San Francisco. She knew that Detective Rudy Spangle would be pissed. From long association with the policeman she was aware he had little patience, and having the only people who knew what had happened leave before completing their conversation would not sit well at all with him. This was not the way these things were handled, and she had to admit the whole situation had been unusual from the start. When she returned to the downtown FBI office she would be making some inquiries herself, but for the moment she had to deal with the fallout of the two agent’s unexplained actions.
Her brown eyes scanned the area, and with both of the detectives out of hearing range, she turned to Nick Morely.
“What kind of question was that?” she asked, referring to the question her partner had posed to Agent Trask.
Special Agent Morely shrugged. “When they introduced themselves, the name struck an odd memory. The name Agent Laney gave for the other agent along with how atypically this is being handled is something I’ve encountered before. It all reminded me of something that happened in Washington a couple of months back.”
“Washington?” Alisha asked.
“Yeah. Remember I was sent back for a couple weeks of special training. While I was there that terrorist attempt was uncovered. The Agency needed every able hand they could find, and even those of us there for other reasons were pressed into service for a couple of days.”
“What does that have to do with Agent Trask?”
“I was paired with another agent, and somewhere along the line he pointed out Trask indicating the guy was somehow driving the whole effort. He claimed that Trask somehow knew what the terrorists were planning and had an uncanny ability to predict where they were going to strike. It was as if Trask had seen it all before, and was calling on that experience to point out where the weapons would be found.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Perhaps, but did you catch the look on Trask’s face? I surprised the hell out of him.”
“Probably by the stupidity of your question.”
“I don’t think so. He was surprised I’d heard of him. Think about the situation today. How did they know so much about this killing? They knew the killing was going to take place and were in position to know where the body would be found and where the two gangsters would be when they retrieved the stiff. They were in place to make the arrest.”
Alisha looked at the stapled pages she’d been handed and the cell phone she’d been told held video of the two men recovering the body that Agent Laney had given her before leaving.
“What did they gain by making the arrest this way?” she asked her partner. “If they knew so much, why didn’t they simply let the arrest be made the normal way?”
Morely shrugged. “They want us to find out who they are and who hired them, so I guess they don’t know everything.