Baby Carter (Baby Grand Trilogy, Book 3) Read online

  “There’s talk of corruption,” Phillip continued. “MSNBC is apparently pulling my old military records looking for any clues as to my ties with Bailino, how I may have secretly been funding his exile in Wyoming. As you know, all it takes is a whiff of corruption these days—nothing concrete—and government officials are finished. Just before you arrived, Collins gave his notice.” Phillip held up an envelope that was on his desk and threw it back down. “The guy couldn’t get out of here fast enough. And rumor has it that Rudy Ray Mitchell—kind, good-hearted, soft-spoken Rudy Ray Mitchell, my friend to the end—is thinking of stepping down and running against me in the next Republican primary. That’s if they don’t impeach me. And you know who might run with him? Josef Clark—if you can believe that.” Phillip raked his hands through his hair. “I have good people working for me, Agent Wilcox—good people—who, in a single week, have feared for their own safety, been interrogated by federal agents, been ridiculed by late-night television, and discovered that the president they trusted is a liar. And on top of all that, I have a country to run and a special agent who is running around playing cowboys and Indians with Bailino …” Phillip came around his desk and stood before Wilcox who, even seated, appeared tall. “You’ve got Bob Scott talking up a storm on every news show that will have him. He practically gave a play-by-play of Jamie’s arrest to Wolf Blitzer … It’s a goddamn media frenzy.” Phillip’s eyes searched Wilcox’s face. “Do you really have nothing to say?”

  “It was necessary,” Wilcox said simply.

  “Necessary? To embarrass Jamie? For what? Stumbling upon Bailino?”

  “Well, that’s her story …”

  “And you think there’s more to it? Based on what? What purpose could—”

  Phillip caught himself. “Wait a second … You don’t think Jamie is trying to hurt me, do you? You’re trying to ferret out Bailino.” Phillip threw his hands into the air. “Jesus …”

  “I told you before,” Wilcox said. “If the cat can’t find the mouse, then we need to get the mouse to go to the cheese.”

  “Yes, we’ve played this game before. Have you forgotten how it turned out? Innocent people died,” Phillip said. “What is this vendetta you have with Bailino? You realize you’re no different than Paolo Cataldi—using an innocent woman to get what you want.”

  “Jamie Carter is far from innocent,” Wilcox said. “Bailino saw to that.”

  “And that whole charade, parading her out in front of her brother’s home handcuffed in front of all the press. Who leaked to the press that you’d be there? Let me guess … Bob Scott.” Phillip shook his head. “You do realize that Edward Carter and his family are private citizens who have been dragged into the spotlight. You’re playing a very dangerous game, Agent Wilcox.”

  “If that’s all, Mr. President?” Wilcox said, standing up.

  “Like hell, it is,” Phillip said, returning to his desk. “You’re off the case, Wilcox. I want Jamie Carter out of jail, or wherever the hell she is.”

  “You’re not going to do that, sir.”

  “I am, and I will.” Phillip picked up the office telephone as his cracked cell phone lit up and vibrated on the desk. He picked it up and stared at the number, which he had memorized by now. He looked at Wilcox. “It’s Bailino.”

  In a flash, Wilcox was at Phillip’s side, examining the phone screen in Phillip’s hand as if he had just received the phone call he had been waiting for his whole life. He picked up his cell phone.

  “Answer it, Mr. President,” Wilcox instructed, plugging in a number and holding his own cell phone to his ear. “On speaker. We should be able to get a location immediately, but try to keep him on the phone as long as you can …”

  Phillip knew it was useless to try to keep Bailino on the phone, and he knew that Wilcox did too. Bailino would stay on the phone as long as Bailino wanted to. He swiped the screen, pressed Speaker, and held the phone in the air between himself and Wilcox like a hot potato. “Yes?” Phillip said.

  “Is that schmuck Wilcox there?” asked Bailino’s unmistakable growl. There were street sounds in the background. Wherever Bailino was, he was outside.

  After a beat, Wilcox replied, “Where are you, you son of a bitch?”

  “Right across the street, asshole,” Bailino said. “Come and get me.”

  CHAPTER 32

  By the time Wilcox got to the D.C. Central Detention Facility, Bailino had already been photographed and his one hand fingerprinted. It hadn’t taken much effort for him to be detained, according to the agents Wilcox had dispatched once Bailino gave away his location. Wilcox would have liked nothing more than to see Bailino on his knees, up close and personal, but he had been held up by Phillip Grand, who had insisted on accompanying him to the facility until Wilcox talked him out of it.

  True to his word, Bailino had been standing across the street from the White House, a stone’s throw from the backs of television producers, editors, and camera people focused in the opposite direction on their on-air personalities, all of whom had had their weekend disrupted by the release of the Phillip Grand video and arrest of Jamie Carter. Apparently, the only tricky part had been handcuffing Bailino—detaining a one-handed person required some finagling—but Wilcox’s men said he complied and probably would have gotten into the back of their sedan by his own volition if they had let him.

  Wilcox rode the elevator to the lower level of the building, where Bailino was being held. When the elevator doors opened, two armed agents appeared, beginning a long line of paired agents. Wilcox wasn’t taking any chances this time. They nodded at him as he approached when suddenly the adjacent elevator door opened and Phillip Grand emerged, ringed by Secret Service agents.

  “Mr. President, I thought we went over this,” Wilcox said, striding down the long corridor.

  “We did, and I’m coming in with you,” Phillip said, charging down the hallway beside him. “You just didn’t agree.”

  “Fine, but with all due respect, don’t get in my way,” Wilcox said as one of the agents opened the holding room door, which clanked as if they were entering a bank vault, and the two men stepped inside.

  Bailino was seated at the long side of a rectangular table, facing them. He was wearing a brown jumpsuit, a leather belt cutting across his midsection to which his right hand had been secured, his handless arm chained behind his back.

  “Agent Wilcox,” Bailino said with a smirk upon seeing him. “It’s been a long time.” When Phillip Grand came into the room, Bailino simply said, “Hey, Phil.”

  The man Wilcox had been chasing for years appeared older and grayer, with a deep tan covering the lines on his face, but Wilcox knew that, despite appearances, he was every bit the ruthless criminal hanging on his office wall. “Did you really think we’d never find you?” Wilcox asked. “Did you really think you’d live out the rest of your life up in the mountains? That you’d never have to pay for all you’ve done.”

  “You found me?” Bailino said. “Talk about fake news. If I’m not mistaken, I just turned myself in. In fact, I think I saw that on CNN about a half hour ago.”

  Even though Wilcox’s agents were able to take down Bailino in a matter of minutes, as soon as the news media got wind of what was going down right behind them on Pennsylvania Avenue, they turned their cameras and started rolling. Wilcox was sure that it hadn’t been by chance that Bailino had chosen that particular location for surrender.

  “I was there, at the house … the log cabin in Wyoming,” Wilcox said. “Inlaid Boon? An anagram for Don Bailino. Very clever.”

  “Just keeping it interesting.” Bailino smirked.

  “You’re running out of places to run. It’s over.”

  “Is it?” Bailino asked. “Tell me more, Agent Wilcox.”

  “Cutting your own hand off. Using the sewers for whatever twisted purpose you had—to escape a burning building, to grab Charlotte Grand, to get in and out of the Little Yellow Hotel. It’s done. You’re done.”

  �
��I see you’ve done your research,” Bailino said. “Impressive.”

  “It’s my job to know about you,” Wilcox said. “Now … Where’s ToniAnne Cataldi? She’s wanted for questioning.”

  Bailino shrugged. “Beats me. Isn’t she home?”

  “No, she’s not.”

  “Did you try the mall?”

  A heat flared within Wilcox’s body and roared through him like an engine. “This can be difficult, or this can be easy,” he said.

  “It’s never easy,” Bailino said. “You know that. And, just so you know, we don’t swim in the same school, ToniAnne and me. You’ve been watching too many fishing shows.”

  The comment caught Wilcox off guard.

  “It’s my job to know about you,” Bailino said.

  “I wouldn’t play games if I were you.” Wilcox pressed his palms onto the table. “You might have no problem going back to prison, but I don’t think Jamie Carter is looking forward to it.”

  The mention of Jamie’s name caused the corners of Bailino’s eyes to tighten. “Who’s playing games here? You never intended to send her to prison. This whole charade was to get me here, and now I’m here. And you’re going to let her go.”

  “Really?” Wilcox let out a small laugh and sat down opposite Bailino at the table as if they were going to play a round of poker. “This may come as a surprise to you, but your magical powers and your charm don’t work with me.”

  “Is that right?” Bailino asked. “You’re hurting my feelings.”

  “We don’t need you.”

  “I’m afraid you do—if you want ToniAnne, for questioning or custody, whichever it is. I prefer the latter. I know you have the bag. I saw you put it into your trunk on CNN.”

  “Are you referring to that duffel bag of junk that I got from Jamie Carter?”

  “ToniAnne’s fingerprints are all over those explosive device parts.”

  “And so are yours,” Wilcox said. “Maybe you’re trying to frame her. We already have someone in custody.”

  “Who? Summers?”

  Against his will, Wilcox hesitated again. He refused to think that Bailino was a step ahead of him.

  “There are two things that ToniAnne likes to do most: fuck and talk,” Bailino said. “I got a heap of both the last time I saw her.”

  “You’re telling me Agent Summers and ToniAnne Cataldi are working together?” Wilcox asked. “Why?”

  Bailino shifted in his seat, although the chains prevented him from moving much, and turned his attention to the president, who had been noticeably quiet. Phillip Grand had been standing to the side, watching and still looking astonished that Bailino was even sitting there at all. “The guy had nothing against you, Phil,” Bailino said.

  “Then why did he do it?” Grand asked, his soft-spoken voice muffled to nearly a whisper in the soundproof room.

  “You’re right,” Bailino said. “It makes no sense. A bright-eyed, up-and-coming agent with an impeccable record and a beautiful family? What would make a man do something so out of character? What would make a peaceful man turn violent?” He waited for the president to answer, but Phillip Grand stood there quietly. “Think about it, Phil. Think of those young boys we saw over in Iraq—lobbing grenades at the American soldiers who had just given them some candy and a basketball. Why? Why does anybody do anything?”

  Wilcox could see the president was thinking—his eyes were unfocused, lost in thought. He couldn’t afford to let Bailino get into Phillip Grand’s head. “Enough with this,” Wilcox said, “I—”

  “To protect his family,” Phillip blurted, his eyes regaining clarity. “Jesus,” Grand ran his hands through his hair, “ToniAnne Cataldi killed Agent Summers’s daughter.”

  Bailino smiled like a doting teacher as if a student had come up with the right answer. “How did his daughter die?” he asked, as if it were a reminder.

  “Hit-and-run,” Phillip said. “She ran the little girl down.”

  Bailino shook his head. “More likely one of her flunkies. She didn’t say, but it was probably her main flunky, Lorenzo Cavetti. ToniAnne prefers bossing people around from her couch than getting her hands dirty, unless she’s standing behind the barrel of a gun.” He shifted again in his seat, a short grunt escaping from his lips. “And Summers has another one at home, right? Another daughter? He has to protect what’s left. That’s why he’s not giving up ToniAnne, and he’s taking the heat. He can’t, not without risking her life.”

  “That’s a lovely theory,” Wilcox said. “But Summers knows we could have protected him.”

  A small chuckle escaped from Bailino’s lips. “I think what Summers knows is that you cannot,” he said. “She would have gotten to him eventually. They always do. You’re bound by the law. They’re not.”

  “Is that what you people do?” Wilcox said with a sneer. “Go after people’s kids.”

  “You gonna lump me in with them?” Bailino said with a shake of his head. “Whatever. I don’t give a shit. I’m trying to help you here … ToniAnne Cataldi has no problem killing kids. Other people’s kids. His. Yours. Especially yours,” he said to Grand. “She blames you for the death of her son. Our son. That’s why I left Wyoming, to get her to stop this nonsense, and I did.”

  “Really?” Wilcox asked. “Wow. How? Let me guess … You asked her nicely?”

  “In a word, yes.”

  “Did she release that video, Don?” Phillip asked.

  Bailino nodded. “That dumb fuck O’Connell was a pawn in a game that he had no idea he was losing.”

  “She killed him for a video?” Wilcox asked incredulously.

  Bailino shook his head. “She killed him for fun. The video was just an excuse.”

  “So you’re saying a fifty-something-year-old woman—from a criminal family, yes—but with no priors and no criminal record just decided to go on a killing spree?” Wilcox asked. “I’m not buying it.”

  Bailino smirked again. “How was O’Connell shot?”

  “Is this a rhetorical question?” Wilcox asked.

  “He was shot in the eye, right?” Bailino said.

  “I see you can read the papers. Impressive.”

  “Is there nothing familiar about that, Agent Wilcox? Have you not seen that before?”

  A flicker of a memory appeared in Wilcox’s mind. “I’m not here to be quizzed,” he said.

  “I can tell from your face that you have seen that before. About twenty years ago, am I right?”

  Wilcox crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, his eyes steady on Bailino.

  “Agent Wilcox?” Grand asked.

  “Okay, I’ll play,” Wilcox said. “In the late ’90s, NYPD recovered two bodies off the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn. Each had been shot in the eye. So?”

  “The official word was that those homicides were unsolved, right? But you thought you knew who did it, didn’t you?”

  “I still do,” he said. “I’m staring at him.”

  “Wrong,” Bailino said. “It was ToniAnne.”

  “Why don’t we pin 9/11 on her too, while we’re at it,” Wilcox said.

  “I don’t understand,” Grand said. “Why did she even bother with O’Connell? How did she know there was more to the video than O’Connell was letting on?”

  “She didn’t,” Bailino said, “but she had a hunch, and she stalked that kid like a sniper, buttering him up until he spilled the beans—and then she spilled his blood all over his off-campus housing.”

  The room was quiet, and Wilcox was trying to figure out Bailino’s angle. He was sure he was up to something. “So you say that—somehow—you got ToniAnne Cataldi to stop the bombings, but you couldn’t get her to not release the video?”

  Bailino shrugged. “That was the compromise, unfortunately. Phil’s integrity for his life. But now …” He motioned toward his chains. “All this nonsense? Me here? Scott shooting his mouth off to anyone who will listen? I mean, will that guy just go home already? There’s no telling what she’s gonna do u
ntil she gets what she wants.”

  “And what is that exactly?” Wilcox asked.

  “Me,” Bailino said simply. “It was poorly played, Wilcox.”

  “Fuck you, Bailino,” Wilcox said, pushing back in his chair, its legs scraping along the concrete floor with a screech. “I’ve heard enough of your bullshit. Jamie Carter is going to rot in a prison cell, and she’ll have you to thank for it.”

  “No, she won’t,” Bailino said. “Phil won’t let that happen. Will you, Phil?”

  Phillip Grand continued to stand there silently, and it was clear that they all knew Wilcox was bluffing. The president would never allow Jamie Carter to go to prison. It was written all over his face and was exactly why Wilcox didn’t want him taking part in the interrogation.

  “If you really thought the president would pardon Ms. Carter,” Wilcox asked Bailino, “then why go through all the trouble of turning yourself in? It makes no sense.”

  “Wow, you are pretty smart, after all,” Bailino said with a smirk. “Here’s the thing …” He got down as far as he could to the table, as if he were about to reveal a secret. “She’s been through enough, more than any decent human being should go through in this lifetime, and I’m not about to see her, or the kid, harmed anymore—not if I can do anything about it, and right now I can. These are my terms …”

  “Terms?” Wilcox said. “You’re joking, right?”

  “Let him speak, Agent Wilcox,” Phillip said, a reprimand that Bailino seemed to enjoy.

  “In addition to letting her go,” Bailino said. “I need the FBI to say that incarcerating her was a mistake—a mistaken identity, a mix-up at the DMV, whatever you can come up with works for me. I need to know that she can go on and live her life without this black mark on top of everything else. She has enough baggage to carry.”

  “Let me get this straight …” Wilcox said. “Jamie Carter aids and abets, and in the end it’s my career that gets tarnished? You can’t be serious.”

  “I am. Very.”

  It amazed Wilcox how a man who could barely move on a chair because he was wrapped in chains could have such a look of authority.