Page 48 of Baby One Last Time
That must be the night they planned to move the weapons for transport out of the country. “Which night?”
“The 26th.”
“Shit.” Boxing Day. Two-and-a-half days from now. I jumped off the bed and starting pacing. We had no idea the timeline was anywhere near that short. Penn and Sparks might not even have their list of potential warehouses narrowed down to a dozen by then. “Any chance they gave you an address?”
“They said it could be one of a few different places.”
That lined right up with the intel Alder and Jensen had intercepted. At least we were on the right track. “No place specific, though?”
“No place they told me. But I did overhear a couple of addresses when they thought our conversation was over.”
“Eavesdropping? That was ballsy.”
“It was fucking stupid is what it was,” Frankie muttered.
“It was brave, and you’re the best. What are the addresses?”
“Not so fast.” His voice took on an edge of steel. “I need some guarantees from you.”
I was in no position to make him any promises. Not yet. Not until I knew his information was actionable. But that was not the way to keep this conversation going. “Tell me what you need.”
“I need you Feds to stay away from me. Not like last time, when your bosses took me in for a chat while they verified my story.”
That was protocol for a CI when a big case got hot. It served two purposes. One, to incentivize the CI to tell the truth, because we were checking the details while he hung out in our interview room. Two, to keep him under our protection while a big job went down.
“I’m with a new agency,” I said. “Maybe we can work around that.” Probably not. I didn’t like lying to the guy, even if he was a petty crook, but his hesitation could ruin our operation.
“That’s not good enough,” he said. “If this Petrov guy has any reason to suspect I’m friendly with the Feds, I’m done. And I don’t just mean in Miami.”
“Okay, but if we have you under protection—”
“In custody, you mean.”
I grimaced. Frankie’s brief stay with us a few years ago hadn’t been the most enjoyable experience for the guy. “Look, you were safe. You can be safe again while we take out this network.”
“Take out this...” He laughed again. This time it reeked of desperation. “Are you going all the way to Moscow? You gonna serve your federal warrants at the Kremlin? You’re killing one snake on Medusa’s head here.”
Well, shit. He had a point. Disrupting this shipment and the network mattered, but you couldn’t survive at HEAT if you kidded yourself into thinking you were taking down the whole tree when you were only hacking off some of the more egregious branches.
“I don’t want to go into Wit Sec,” he added before I could suggest it. “Miami’s my town. I won’t survive anywhere else.”
It was just as well. I couldn’t promise him a new identity and its related costs, either. Not without sign-off from X.
“Well, shit,” I said out loud. “You know a lot about how this shouldn’t go down. Any thoughts about how it should?”
“Can’t you guys...I don’t know...sit on the places, wait to catch them moving the goods?”
“Surveil a place for God-knows-how-long, based on a tip from a guy who won’t talk to my bosses, with no verification of whether there are even weapons at the addresses you overheard?”
Frankie groaned. “When you put it that way, I took a stupid risk for no payoff.”
It had been obvious when I’d met with him that he was counting on the money I’d promised for good intel. And my team needed a good, solid lead, especially if this was moving faster than the intercepted communications had led us to believe.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” I told Frankie. “First, are you someplace safe?”
“I’m at my condo. But I could clear out. There are a couple of places I could go.”
“Good. Do that. Lie low until you get the all-clear from me. And I mean really low. That way we can’t find you, and neither can Miami Pete and Petrov. Give me the addresses you heard, and I’ll take it from there. If anything comes of it, you’ll get paid. Either way, I’ll call you on your burner when it’s safe to go home.”
