Page 33 of Billion-Dollar Ransom

“NICKY, CALM DOWN. Please.”

“You can address me, Mr. Tighe, as Ms. Gordon or Agent Gordon,” Nicky said.

“Apologies. I thought we were beyond formalities. Look, I know you’re upset, and I don’t blame you. But listen to me, I was there when Rubin Padilla was shot.”

“And you just let it happen ?”

“The man was trying to escape with a boxful of money, but he decided to ambush our operatives on his way out. We stopped him before that could happen. I wasn’t about to risk one of our operatives’ lives on that scumbag.”

“Padilla was our best witness. I shouldn’t have to explain this to you, but dead witnesses are useless.”

“If he was such a vital witness, why didn’t you bring him in yesterday afternoon, Agent Gordon ? Or did you think it would be amusing to have us do your scut work?”

Nicky took a deep breath and tried to channel her inner John Scoleri, who was legendary for the way he suffered fools and assholes all day long with grace and intelligence.

He’d gladly suffer a thousand insults if it meant solving the case at hand.

Maybe that was why his clearance rate was so impressive.

Maybe that was also why he’d be trapped here in the LA field office until he retired.

“I don’t want to do this with you, Virgil,” Nicky said, intentionally using his first name and speaking in a soft, conciliatory tone. “There’s too much at stake. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“I would.”

“I should have given you more about Rubin Padilla before sending you after him. We will be more transparent as we proceed.”

“I’m very glad to hear that.”

“And that works both ways, right?”

There was a pause, as if the Capital man were too proud to promise anything. But it turned out that wasn’t the case at all.

“Listen, Haller would skin me alive if he knew I was telling you this…”

“I’m listening.”

“Because this aspect of the case is supersensitive to Randolph Schraeder. He doesn’t want to even hear about it, let alone deal with it.”

“At some point you’re going to have to just say it out loud.”

Virgil sighed. “The older son. Tyler Schraeder. No offense to the current wife and those little kids, but Tyler’s the big catch, and the kidnappers know it. Yet he’s the one part of the case we can’t even bring up to Randolph. And we’re kind of stumbling in the dark here.”

“So you’d like us to take the lead on that one.”

“I know it would make the mayor very happy. Tyler Schraeder, like his father, is a generous donor to her campaign.”

“I don’t care about that,” Nicky said, which was the truth. But she agreed with Virgil that Tyler was the real score. She suspected that the trophy wife and kids were almost beside the point.

“So here it is, me cooperating. I have a good source in the Mexican police who tells me Tyler and that actress, Cass Bart, are most likely being held in Tijuana. Forget the resort town and start looking there.”

“I appreciate that,” Nicky said, and she did.

But she was already anticipating the headaches that would come along with liaising with TJ police.

As a rule, they were corrupt. And quite possibly in the pocket of the kidnappers.

This tip could be misinformation that added to the fog obscuring their movements.

“And since we’re in this new era of cooperation,” Nicky added, “maybe you can tell your mole or moles on my task force to stand down for their own good. Because once we find them, they’re gone.”

“I don’t have a problem with that,” Virgil said. “We hire a lot of ex-feds.”