Cross the Line (Alex Cross #24)(23)

From there she gave them a story of four very smart, very driven people who’d been seduced into crime and easy money by Laxman Dalal, a man whom Campbell had described as “brilliant, charismatic, and morally corrupt.”

“Dalal evidently didn’t think the laws applied to him,” Bree said. “By sheer force of brains and personality, he convinced his fellow students, including Alexandra Campbell’s ex-boyfriend Carlo Puente, that they could earn a whole lot of cash by making meth at night, on weekends, and during their summer breaks.”

They got good fast, and their illegal business started to grow even faster. Campbell said it had started in a small garage in Southeast DC, but they’d soon moved to the factory in Anacostia.

“Campbell said her boyfriend showed her bags of money back in March,” Bree said. “That’s when she said she called it quits with Puente. She says she told him Dalal was going to get him killed. And he did. That’s it for me. Special Agent Potter?”

Bree stepped away from the lectern, and the DEA SAC took her place.

Potter said, “Before last year, I would have told you that there was no drug gang brazen enough or capable enough to pull off this kind of massacre. But in the last six months, across northern Mexico and the desert Southwest, we’ve seen a rise in deadly turf wars. Traffickers shot and left for dead. Labs like this one blown up. When I was in the El Paso office, it looked like some group was bent on cornering the market in illicit drugs, forming kind of a supercartel that was willing to kill anyone in its way.”

“We have a name for this supercartel?” I asked. “People involved?”

Potter looked at me, said, “I wish we did, Dr. Cross. In El Paso, it was like chasing ghosts, and then I was transferred here.”

“Did you have any intelligence about that factory?” Sampson asked.

Potter looked at his men, who shook their heads.

“It was as big a surprise to us as it was to you,” Potter said, and then he sighed. “But then again, we’ve been shorthanded. Budget cuts.”

Ned Mahoney cleared his throat, said, “I don’t know about a supercartel, but I think you’re right about brazenness being a factor here. You’d have to be stone-cold to do this, so I think we have to agree from the start that this was professionally done and proceed from there.”

“No doubt,” Potter said. “These guys were highly trained.”

“SWAT level?” Bree asked.

“I think we’re dealing with a group that’s quite a few steps above SWAT,” Mahoney said. “This feels commando-trained, at a minimum.”

“So, mercenaries?” Sampson asked.

“Could be,” Mahoney replied. “There are a lot of private security contractors around, now that Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down. I don’t think you’d have trouble putting together an elite team if the money was right.”

“Hold that thought,” Bree said, and nodded.

Photos of the remaining two John Does, the ones dressed for business, got bigger on the screen.

“We think these two are the moneymen,” she said. “Either they funded the lab’s construction and equipment or they were involved in the sale of—”

Mahoney’s phone started beeping. So did Bree’s. And Potter’s.

They all went for their phones. Bree’s was right in her hand. She scanned the screen, stiffened, and said, “Two more drug labs have been hit. One in Newark. Another in rural Connecticut. Multiple deaths confirmed in both places.”





CHAPTER


24


BOTH METH LABS had been taken down within minutes of each other, and with the same attention to detail. All the people inside the drug factories were dead. There were no cartridge casings at either scene. In each case, hundreds of thousands of dollars and multiple kilos of methamphetamine were left untouched.

Ned Mahoney and the FBI seized control of the larger investigation at that point. Three different massacres across state lines demanded it, though Chief of Detectives Bree Stone remained in charge of the Anacostia slayings.

It was a little odd at first, having my wife be my boss, but then I realized she and Nana Mama ruled the roost at home anyway, and I got over it. Even better, Bree was good at being a chief. Right off the bat. She had a knack for pulling the levers, getting you what you needed.

But despite her efforts, for several days we made little progress. Then, ninety-six hours after we arrived at the massacre scene in Anacostia, we identified the two dead businessmen through missing-persons reports in Virginia and Maryland.

Chandler Keen of Falls Church ran a small investment firm currently under investigation by the SEC. Matthew Franks was a Bethesda-based real estate developer who’d been hit with several multimillion-dollar legal judgments in construction-default lawsuits.

The FBI raided their offices and homes, but it was going to take some time to cull through the seized evidence. It was clear, though, that both men had had adequate reasons to get involved in the lucrative business of illegal drug manufacturing. But how it had happened and why they and the twenty others had been targeted for death remained a mystery.

Cable news, not surprisingly, went bonkers over the case, especially the Georgetown University angle. Students were back on campus and some of them were more than happy to talk. As a result, we knew a lot more about the five genius victims, but nothing game-changing.