Marquez did the new passport photo and filled out the Federal form, the FD871. Desault ran the criminal check, and then with the help of Desault’s boss, the SAC, Mark Gutierrez, he’d pushed it through. Marquez knew the way he was dressed this morning made Desault uncomfortable, but he wanted to communicate with jeans and a fleece coat with a torn sleeve that, yes, he was signing on as a Fed agent, but only temporarily and he wasn’t here to conform and blend in. He was here for one specific thing and he didn’t mean to throw off attitude or come off as an asshole, but he did want to set a boundary. He was signing on as a Task Force Officer, a TFO, good for a year, a concession made to Desault as originally Marquez had wanted to hold it to six months.
When they walked into Gutierrez’s office, Gutierrez was on his feet on his cell phone, a conversation he ended abruptly. He offered his hand to Marquez.
‘You look like you’re ready to hike into the woods.’
‘I don’t want to forget where I’m coming from.’
‘The question is, do you know where you are right now?’
‘I do, and if I didn’t think this had a chance of working I wouldn’t be here.’
Marquez knew Gutierrez had read his file and knew the circumstances of how he’d left the DEA. He probably wondered if he was bringing in trouble. But he was also onboard with bringing him in and was curious about the bighorn poaching. His questions about that now proved he’d read the Fish and Game file Marquez had copied for Desault. Gutierrez asked questions and then in the same quick manner he’d ended the phone conversation earlier, he said, ‘OK, let’s get this done,’ as in let’s get you sworn in.
‘Let’s wait,’ Marquez said. ‘There may be a complication. I got a call from my daughter on the way here. She may have a lead on the condo fire in Arizona yesterday.’
Desault looked stunned and Gutierrez surprised, though immediately right on it.
‘What does she know?’
‘She overheard a conversation in a hotel, her ex-boyfriend talking to somebody. She put it together last night and called me as I was on my way here this morning. She’s not involved in any way. This is just something she overheard and I’ll bring her in today, but if it’s real and it sounds like it might be, who knows where it could go.’
Desault frowned and Gutierrez got it. Gutierrez saw Maria as a person of interest now and saw what Marquez saw, the Bureau embarrassed as the media discovered her father was on an FBI task force.
‘You believe we should talk to your daughter first?’ he asked.
‘Yeah, but listen to me, I’m saying my daughter is coming forward with something she overheard and was worried enough about to call me. My daughter broke up with this Jack Gant weeks ago. She’s not a link to him anymore. She’s not involved in any plot.’
‘We appreciate her coming forward.’
‘I want to be there when she’s questioned.’
Gutierrez said nothing and Desault stepped in now and revealed what Gutierrez might not have.
‘We’re already looking for Jack Gant. We’ve got an agent named Jane Hosfleter who heads the ecoterrorism squad. She brought up Gant’s name this morning. They’re looking at a Bay Area angle on the Arizona fire. Hosfleter will want to talk to your daughter as soon as you can get her here. Do you want to call Maria, right now, and you and I can go pick her up?’
‘I’ll get Maria here.’
It turned out Hosfleter wasn’t going to be back in the Field Office until mid afternoon and Maria wasn’t at work. Marquez left a message on her cell phone, told her he’d done what she and he agreed earlier. ‘Call me as soon as you get this.’
He hung up and Desault said, ‘OK, well, we’re waiting anyway so let’s go get lunch. I was going to take you to lunch.’
They walked to a Japanese restaurant Desault liked. It was cool and dark inside and there were slender tall aquariums with tropical fish. They took seats at the bar where CNN played on a big flat screen above them. Anderson Cooper was in Iraq talking about aging military equipment. An old Sherpa plane used for ferrying men and materials in Iraq showed on the screen and Desault read the caption aloud, Workhorse of the Desert.
‘I once flew into a drug bust in one of those,’ Marquez said. ‘We busted the pilot and cut a deal with him to pretend he was still bringing in the load.’
The report went on about the aging fleet of C-23 Sherpas, the complex procurement process, and the need to revamp after five years of war. Cooper returned to a final shot of the Sherpa and said, ‘No other aircraft in the Iraq war has carried more.’
CNN switched to the Arizona condo fire and footage of the fire line showed. A reporter questioned a tree ecologist about what he thought the prolonged drought had done to Arizona trees, and then they cut to an FBI spokesman out of the Phoenix office who appealed to the public for help. An aerial view from a helicopter looked down on the remains of the condos and the burned cottonwoods along the canyon floor, and as the obligatory shot of a plane dropping fire retardant appeared on the screen Marquez and Desault ordered lunch.
Desault ate a bowl of donburi, explaining that he liked the chicken and egg version they did here. ‘At home my wife badgers me about my cholesterol, but here I sneak eggs. Man, I love eggs.’ When Desault finished eating he pushed the empty donburi bowl away and said, ‘Here, I’ve got something for you.’
He pulled out Marquez’s new creds, badge, and passport. Marquez checked out the maroon passport that back when Marquez was a Fed agent had been called a redback. He picked it up and then the black wallet holding the creds. The feel, the shape, the weight was still very familiar.
‘A couple of details about traveling that you need to know, John. When you get there you go straight to the airline counter and get your tickets. You won’t have a gun, so there’s no issue there, but you’ve got to wait through security like everyone else. When the transportation security guys see your badge they’ll wave you through. Since 9/11 more of these flights have Federal Air Marshals or FAMs onboard, and if you don’t meet them or other law enforcement officers ahead of time, hold your boarding pass and creds like this.’
Desault held the cred and boarding pass together so you could make out both.
‘Don’t wave it, but hold it so that if there’s a FAM seated already or another LEO, they should acknowledge you. But good chance you’ll be the only one on the plane.
‘You’ll fly business class. You’ll always be seated forward. That way you can sacrifice your life when the time comes. You need the leg room anyway. You’ve got a knee, right?’
‘Yeah, but it doesn’t bother me much.’
‘It has to, because I wrote that you can’t ever fly coach because of the knee.’
Marquez smiled and Desault’s phone rang. Desault scooped up the creds and the passport and said, ‘I hope to turn these over to you later today.’ He pointed at the TV. ‘I’ve got to take this outside where I can hear.’
Marquez paid for lunch and walked out into the sunlight. He watched Desault on the phone and waited. After Desault hung up, he said, ‘That was Jane Hosfleter, the agent I told you about who runs the ecoterrorism squad. She and another agent were at your stepdaughter’s workplace half an hour ago. Hosfleter wants a call from you right now. Let me give you her number.’
‘Tell Hosfleter I’ll bring her in by three, and that I won’t be calling her.’
Marquez started to say more, but instead turned and walked away.