Cross the Line Read online

  “Any danger of this place exploding?” I asked.

  “Lots of potential danger,” Pitts said. “But now that we know what we’ve got, we’ll start shutting down the reactions. Then we’ll do an inventory and take the samples we need. We’ll call for a full team to dismantle the entire lab and store it for trial.”

  Trial. I couldn’t begin to think how long it was going to take to investigate this case, much less bring the killers to court. Sampson and I headed toward a second air lock at the other end of the laboratory.

  We went through it, and in the next twenty minutes we found the rest of the illegal drug factory as well as twelve more bodies. Five females, seven males of various races and ages. Twenty-two dead in all.

  Three of the females were found in a packaging room with long stainless-steel tables, large mortars and pestles, digital scales, hundreds of boxes of zip-lock bags, and four vacuum-sealing machines. Six kilos of raw meth were piled on the table. Sampson figured there was at least twice that amount already wrapped, sealed, and boxed for delivery.

  “If this were a case of assassins hired by rival drug lords, you’d figure they would have taken the drugs with them,” Sampson said.

  “Maybe they were after money,” I said. “An operation this size has to be generating millions in cash.”

  In the last room we found the cash. On a pallet, there were banded fifty-dollar bills, similar to the ones we’d seen at Edita Kravic’s place, stacked three feet high and wrapped in cellophane. Next to that were two guys in their mid- to late thirties wearing suits and ties. Both had been shot between the eyes.

  “Has to be at least a million dollars right there, and they leave it,” Sampson said. “I don’t get it.”

  “I don’t either,” I said.

  “Revenge?”

  “Maybe. Not one of the victims seems to have put up any kind of resistance. It’s as if every single one of them was surprised and killed with a single shot.”

  “Which means suppressors on all the weapons.”

  “Definitely.”

  Sampson said, “Everything about this is scary smart and precise. The shooting. Picking up the brass. Sweeping as they left. The lack of a reason.”

  “Oh, there’s a reason, John,” I said. “You don’t kill twenty-two people if you don’t have a damned good reason.”

  Chapter

  21

  An hour later, in the full heat of the day, Bree stepped up in front of a bank of microphones outside the factory fences.

  “I know this has been frustrating, but we wanted to give you accurate facts and it took time to gather them,” she said in a clear, commanding voice. “We are dealing with multiple homicides in the unstable environment of an extremely large methamphetamine lab. Twenty-two are known dead.”

  Gasps went up. Reporters started bellowing questions. Screams of horror and grief gathered force in the crowd beyond the media throng.

  “Please,” Bree said, holding up her hands. “The bodies have been stripped of identification. Someone out there knows someone who worked in this factory—a wife, a mother, a friend, a husband, a father, a son or daughter.

  “If you’re that someone, we ask that you come forward to identify the body and help us understand who might be responsible for committing these cold-blooded killings and why.”

  The media went nuts and bombarded Bree with questions. She kept calm and told them essentially the same thing over and over again.

  “Well done,” I said when she walked away from the microphones after promising to update them on the hour.

  “Just have to know how to feed them,” Bree said. “Bit by bit.”

  No one came forward initially, not even those people openly grieving. Then the bodies started leaving the factory in black bags, and the massacre was real, and their loss was heartbreaking.

  Vicky Sue Granger was the first to talk. In her late twenties, she looked devastated, and she said she was sure her husband, Dale, was in there.

  “He work in the lab?” Bree asked.

  “Shamrock City,” she said weakly. “That’s what they called it. If you were lucky enough to get inside, and you worked hard, the money just came pouring—”

  She stopped talking. I guess she figured the less she said about illegal cash, the better.

  I said, “Who was in charge?”

  Mrs. Granger shrugged, said, “Dale got in through T-Shawn, his cousin.”

  Other relatives started coming forward once we’d moved the bodies to an air-conditioned space at the medical examiner’s office. Family after family was forced to walk down the line of corpses lying in open bags on the cement floor. One man was looking for his eighteen-year-old son. Two girls were there for their older sister. A grandmother broke down in Bree’s arms.

  Dale Granger was there. He worked in packaging and had taken a bullet to the chest. His cousin Tim Shawn Warren, a part-time bouncer at a strip club, was one of the muscular guys who’d been strangled outside.

  Few of the relatives wanted to talk. The ones that did come up to us claimed to know little of what their loved ones had been doing, only that they’d gotten jobs and suddenly had a lot of cash on hand.

  Then Claire Newfield walked in. She saw her younger brother, Clyde, a guard with a broken neck, and became hysterical. When she finally got herself under control, she said Clyde had told her that he worked for scientists.

  “He said they were like geniuses,” Newfield said. “They’d figured out a new way to make meth and they were going to rule the entire East Coast.”

  “You have names?”

  “No, I didn’t want to know.”

  Around eight that night, we were left with seven bodies on the chill cement floor, and no one waiting outside. Two Jane Does. Five John Does. Two were the older Caucasian males in suits who’d been found with the cash; the remaining five were all in their late twenties and had been discovered in the meth lab.

  I knelt next to the bodies and looked at them. What had brought them to this? Who the hell were they?

  “Let’s get these bodies on ice,” I said.

  “Dr. Cross?” called one of the patrolmen by the door. “There’s a young lady out here who wants to look for her friends.”

  “Okay, one more.”

  Alexandra Campbell shuffled in as if against her will, shoulders rolled forward, looking everywhere but at the bodies. She was a reedy woman in her twenties with a colorful sleeve tattoo and blond hair dyed peach in places.

  “You think you know someone here?” I asked after introducing myself.

  Campbell shrugged miserably, said, “Gotta look. Make sure.”

  I led her over. Campbell stopped eight or nine feet from the remaining seven bodies. Her hand trembled up to cover her mouth.

  “Carlo,” she choked out. “Now look where you’ve left me.”

  She kind of folded down into herself then, wrapped her arms around her knees at the feet of the body bags, and sobbed her poor heart out. I gave her some time and then crouched at her side and offered her a tissue box.

  Bree brought her a bottle of water, and Campbell told us everything she knew.

  Chapter

  22

  We didn’t reach home until well after midnight. We ate cold leftover chicken in the kitchen and tried to forget the things we’d seen and heard.

  “You believe her?” Bree asked, getting up from the table to wash her plate. “Alexandra Campbell?”

  “The bones of it,” I said.

  “God help us, then,” she said. “Tomorrow’s going to be a zoo.”

  “Just be the calm tortoise,” I said.

  “You’re asking me to act like a turtle at work?”

  “No, like a tortoise, with a big armored shell and the ability to stand back from it all and keep plodding toward the finish line.”

  Bree looked at me sleepily, came into my arms, and said, “I have a feeling this is going to be all-consuming for a while, and you telling me to act like a land turtle wasn’t exact
ly the advice I expected from you. But I love you and let’s not lose track of each other.”

  “Deal,” I said, and followed her upstairs to bed.

  I don’t remember my head hitting the pillow. I don’t remember dreaming.

  There was nothing but darkness until the alarm went off at six fifteen. Bree was already up, showered, and dressed, and eating in the kitchen with Nana Mama. Jannie was drinking a protein shake and wearing her warm-ups.

  I yawned, said to Jannie, “You’re up early.”

  “Trainer’s waiting. He wants my workouts done before the heat comes up.”

  “You on the track?”

  “Gym,” Jannie said. “I’m being introduced to Olympic weight lifting.”

  “You’re going to be one of those bodybuilders?” my grandmother asked. “They’re not fast.”

  “No, Nana,” Jannie said. “This is exactly the opposite of bodybuilding. The Olympic lifts require every muscle in your body to engage and fire. So doing them in addition to running will get me much stronger and more explosive, and it’ll do it without making my body look freakish.”

  “Oh, well, that’s good,” Nana Mama said. “No freakish in this family.”

  I smiled through another yawn, poured myself coffee. Bree rinsed the dishes and got ready to leave. I followed her into the front hallway.

  “Why are you in such a rush?” I asked.

  “Chief Michaels texted me, asked me to be in his office by nine.”

  “For what?”

  “To brief the mayor and the commissioner. How do I look?”

  “Like a badass crime fighter.”

  Bree smiled at that, pecked me on the lips, and said, “Thanks for making my life easier.”

  “Anytime. Day or night.”

  Chapter

  23

  The murders of Aaron Peters, Tom McGrath, and Edita Kravic were put on the back burner after the massacre. Chief Michaels ordered virtually the entire Major Case Unit to work on the factory slayings.

  The FBI put another ten agents on the case. The help of the DEA was enlisted as well. A task-force meeting was called for early that afternoon in a room normally used for patrol roll call.

  The room was packed when Chief Michaels came in; he was followed by Ned Mahoney, a guy with a shaved head I didn’t recognize, and Bree. We hadn’t seen each other all morning, since I’d been back at the factory, watching the FBI neutralize and dismantle the meth lab.

  She smiled and opened her eyes wide at me, mouthed the word Text.

  I frowned, reached in my pocket, pulled out my smartphone, and realized that I’d shut the alerts off. There were several texts from Bree. The first three said Call.

  The last one said Oh, well, hold on to your hat.

  “This kind of slaughter will not go unanswered,” Chief Michaels began. “You cannot kill twenty-two people and not face punishment.”

  Everyone in the room sobered. Many nodded their heads.

  “The FBI, DEA, and DCPD have pledged total cooperation in that effort,” Chief Michaels said. “Our new chief of detectives, Bree Stone, will be supervising liaison with Special Agent Mahoney of the FBI and the acting DEA special agent in charge for the District, George Potter.”

  Sampson whispered in my ear, “Your mouth’s hanging open.”

  I shut it and grinned, prouder than proud. How could I not have seen that one coming?

  Bree stepped up to the mike and nodded to me, all business.

  Multiple photographs appeared on a screen in the corner.

  “As of now, we have twenty out of twenty-two confirmed identities for the victims,” Bree said. “Any one of these people could be linked to the killers, so we are going to need workups on all of them.”

  She nodded to someone, and the photos were reduced to five.

  “This has not come out yet, but we know quite a bit about these five from a witness who came forward late last night,” she said. “All five are classmates in the graduate chemistry program at Georgetown University.”

  That sent a rumble through the crowd. Georgetown? Chemists from a prestigious university running a meth lab?

  Bree gestured to a photo of a dark-complected curly-haired man and said, “This is Laxman Dalal. Twenty-two years old. PhD candidate. Born in Mumbai, he went to the University of Southern California on a full academic ride and finished in two years. We believe he was the brains and driving force behind the drug lab.”

  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.

  On the sixth morning after the massacre, I told Bree I was going back to work the Tom McGrath case while we waited for forensics to give us some kind of tangible lead on the factory killings.