The Chef - James Patterson Page 0,101

anyone, you were just caught up in something…now’s your chance to make it right.”

The sobs start but he says, “There’s a place…near Shreveport…some old hunting camp…that’s where we practiced…that’s where we planned it…”

“In Bossier Parish, right?” I ask, remembering what Billy had told me about shooting there with his cousin David a year ago.

Slippery bastard, I think, pointing to his cousin as a possible suspect…

He nods. “Billy stayed there, in a little bunkhouse…lectured to us at night about what we had to do to save New Orleans…”

He lowers his head. “Oh, sweet Jesus, please forgive me.”

I get up and walk out, taking the folder with me.

Chapter 90

THE OBSERVATION room is much more crowded than it was when I first left, but Cunningham is the first person I recognize, and I shove the folder back to him.

I say, “That little Jane Doe still not identified?”

His face is struggling with lots of emotions. “Not yet, but we’ll find out who her family is…God, Caleb.”

“God wasn’t in that room,” I say. “Just a lot of guilt. I just hope her family forgives us for what we did to her, using her body like that. Did you hear what he said, about that hunting camp?”

A different voice says, “Got it, ID’d it, and we’re preparing an assault team right now to drop in.”

I burn again with resentment and anger as Special Agent Morgan shoves his way forward.

“Wait a sec,” I say. “You should have known about Billy’s hunting camp in Bossier Parish. I thought you clowns had already searched all of his properties?”

Morgan looks pissed. Big deal. He says, “We were fooled. That place wasn’t in his most recent listings…he donated the land and property to the Nature Conservancy three years back. It was a mistake.”

Cunningham is right next to me, like he wants to make sure I don’t take a swing at the arrogant FBI man. “Yeah, you guys are experts at this,” I say. “Making mistakes, getting people killed…when do we leave?”

“‘We’?” Morgan asks, still looking pissed. “What do you mean, ‘we’?”

“Don’t screw with me,” I say, raising my voice so that others in this crowded room look at me. “You guys are hitting that cabin, I’m coming along.”

Morgan squeezes his lips together and says, “Chief Cunningham?”

“Right here.”

“Is this man a law enforcement official in your city?”

“No.”

In a sharp, sneering tone, Morgan says, “Sorry, Rooney. This raid’s going off within fifteen minutes, and we don’t plan to have it catered. Get the hell out of my way.”

I try to hit him, but Cunningham and others hold me back.

Chapter 91

SOME MINUTES later Cunningham is escorting me back out of the LeMont Federal Building and I say bitterly, “Why are you here? Aren’t you going out with the feds?”

With a weary sigh he says, “I hate helicopters. Let the feds have the glory. And I’m dead tired, Caleb. I mean, you try riding in secret in a Mardi Gras float, all bent over, not able to move, breathing in diesel fumes…”

We get to the doors and there are flashes of lightning in the darkness. Camera crews, reporters, and others are clustered outside.

Cunningham says, “Don’t scream at me when I say this, but Morgan isn’t totally to blame.”

“The hell he isn’t!”

My former boss taps my elbow. “Remember when I first briefed you on this, back when you were outside, washing your truck? I said that a lot of high-level meetings were going on, both here and in DC? That there were international security implications? Well, yeah, I found out from one of the local FBI agents…DC screwed Morgan over, and good.”

“How?”

He rubs his face for a second. “Yeah, there were international implications, all right. The boys at the Hoover building got contacted by the FSB.”

“Who?”

“The FSB,” he says. “The Russian spy agency that replaced the KGB. Somehow they got wind of the investigation going on down here, and they told the FBI that they had some good intel they were going to pass on. Just be patient, the Russians said, we’ll help you out.”

I say, “The Russians didn’t have anything.”

“Not a goddamn thing,” he says. “Morgan’s superiors didn’t want him to go full-out in his investigation…they wanted to wait for the Russians to step in, help us break up the plot, get great headlines about a reset in the American-Russian relationship, all that good shit. So Morgan was held back, and yesterday, Ivan called the feds and said, oops, our bad, we can’t help.”

I feel worn, tired, and betrayed. All of the dead and wounded