Undercover Protector. Molly O'Keefe

Putting an innocent man in grave danger was an ugly way to break a case. And the odds of its success weren’t high. Delgado’s men wouldn’t roll on Delgado.

      “That’s one option.” Curtis nodded.

      “What’s the other?” Gordon asked.

      “We find out what Delgado is clearly ready to kill Gomez to keep hidden.”

      “Does that mean going undercover?” Gordon grinned like a kid being taken to Walt Disney World.

      Maggie felt an inevitable tide at work here and she tried not to fight it. Tried to get excited about her role, her job. She looked down at her hands.

      One more time, she told herself. For your brother. You can go undercover one more time.

      For Patrick she would do anything.

      She would sell off a little bit more of her soul.

      “That’s the plan. Gomez has called a housecleaning service and is interviewing candidates today. We’re sending in two decoys and then we’re sending in Fitzgerald.” Curtis tapped her folder.

      “Why two decoys?” Gordon asked.

      “To make Fitzgerald irresistible.”

      “Thanks a lot,” Maggie groused.

      “In any case, you get in and during the interview, you plant three surveillance bugs. Hopefully you also get the job, allowing us broader access to Gomez.”

      She nodded and bit her lip against a satisfied smile. Finally, finally she was getting close to nailing the man responsible for her brother’s death.

      “Sounds good.”

      Walters leaned back and ran his hands over his thick brown hair and laughed, though the sound was not funny. Maggie’s satisfaction dimmed and Gordon’s smug smile fled.

      Walters was going to give them a reality check.

      “Before you kids start thinking you’ve cracked this case, let’s look at what you are up against.” He took a deep breath through his nose and it seemed to Maggie that he sucked all the air out of the room.

      “Three years ago,” Walters continued, “in the span of a week, Delgado takes down every drug dealer, racketeer, arms dealer and money launderer in Los Angeles who poses any kind of threat to him. He murders Hernandez and takes over his syndicate, has every Latin King from here to San Diego bowing to him.”

      He paused as if waiting for confirmation and Maggie, Gordon and Curtis all nodded.

      “And now, thanks to this journalist, we’ve got two options. One, baiting a trap with Caleb Gomez in the hopes of maybe, possibly catching Delgado.

      Or two, finding out what information Gomez has that Delgado is ready to kill for then somehow using it to bring him down.”

      “That sounds about right,” Curtis said. “It’s the biggest break we’ve had in the case in a year.”

      “What do we know about Gomez?” Walters asked and Maggie could have sworn Curtis got red under the collar.

      “Not much,” he admitted. “He was brought in for questioning regarding a burglary ring about six years ago. He’d gotten some information from one of the men for a story he was doing on the federal penitentiary system. When the Bureau tried to subpoena him, he raised such a stink he was labeled uncooperative and that the whole thing was dropped.”

      That’s not good, Maggie thought.

      “What kind of stink?” Gordon asked.

      “Op-ed pieces in every major U.S. paper regarding the FBI and the swiftly diminishing civil rights of Americans.” Curtis cleared his throat. “It wasn’t good.”

      “That’s our guy?” Gordon asked, almost laughing. “He’s going to love us going undercover in his house.”

      “Well, that’s why I brought in Fitzgerald.” Curtis nodded, though the director seemed very unconvinced. “She’s good.”

      “She better be or he’ll be dead and we’ll be no closer to catching Delgado.”

      “Yes, sir,” Curtis said and Maggie and Gordon stood.

      “You have one week,” Walters said, “to turn up anything that proves this isn’t a wild-goose chase and then I’m pulling the undercover operation. After that, we’ll plant some protection outside his house.”

      “We’ve tried that, sir, and it doesn’t work. Six months ago the female witness was killed in the safe house with two armed guards right outside her door,” Curtis said. “The assailants had killed one guard and disabled the other and slit the witness’s throat. The Bureau, the LAPD and ATF had huge mud on their faces for that one. We ended up with more bodies and no evidence. There’s every likelihood that the Gomez case would end the same way.”

      “Or not. Either way you’ve got the Bureau out on a limb going into this guy’s house. He’s a public figure right now, a public figure with no respect for the necessary investigative measures the Bureau takes. This has the potential to go bad in a big way. You got me?”

      “Yes, sir,” they said in unison.

      Before she turned toward the door, Walters’s brown eyes bored into hers and she felt like a bug under glass, skewered and exposed. “Fitzgerald?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “Your brother was the cop—”

      “Yes, sir.” Maggie interrupted before he could finish. As always it was on the tip of her tongue to explain Patrick had been set up, but she’d screamed her throat raw trying to get people to believe that without proof.

      Walters studied her and she did not flinch. Did not blink. He could look for any sign that she was as flawed and corrupt as everyone thought her brother was. He could look for any weakness, any soft spot that might be used against her or the Bureau.

      He wouldn’t find them.

      Walters smiled again and a chill danced down Maggie’s spine.

      “What year did you graduate?”

      “99-92,” she said giving the year of her graduation and the class number.

      “She was top of her class in investigation and fitness,” Curtis said, leaping to her defense. She gave him a quick half smile of appreciation.

      “You were a part of the hydroponics farm drug sting last year,” Walters asked.

      She nodded again.

      “Well, Fitzgerald. Let’s hope you can do the job.”

      “Yes, sir.” She nodded.

      There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that she could do this job. Even in one week, she could do this job.

      FOUR HOURS LATER Maggie, Gordon and Curtis were in place, the three of them and thousands of dollars of surveillance equipment wedged into a white utility van parked at the bottom of Gomez’s street.

      “You all right?” Curtis’s hand on Maggie’s shoulder felt like a ton of bricks, a million pounds of expectation.

      “I’m good,” Maggie answered. “Ready.”

      She had been ready for this moment for six months. Since the very moment she and her family found out Patrick had been killed—exactly two weeks before he was supposed to give testimony against Delgado.

      That moment had created this moment, which she knew would create the moment Delgado either rotted away behind bars or was given the lethal injection.

      These were the only possible outcomes.

      She took a deep breath of the humid air in the van and held out her hand. Curtis dropped the three surveillance bugs in her palm and she slipped them into the special pocket in her khaki