Dead Shot (A Cal Murphy Thriller Book 1)

Chapter 57

Chapter 57

Worried and frustrated at the lack of response from Cal, Mercer decided it was best to get back into his patrol car and not yield to the paranoia that was gnawing at Gold. The killing spree over the past 24 hours proved Gold's resolve to insulate the Cloverdale empire from any scurrilous accusations. If there was any doubt before about Gold's determination to protect what he had built, it was snuffed out with Guy's last breath. Nobody was going to penetrate Statenville's fortress. It was an outpost that fell off almost every radar, the exact reason Gold methodically picked this city for his business.

But Gold put it on the FBI's radar. When Mercer joined the bureau, his first assignment at the Boston field office was to look for ways to bring down the Scarelli mob bosses. Gold, who went by Carmen Deangelo on the street, was a rising captain with great promise before he almost vanished. For about 12 years, the FBI's best assumption was that Deangelo had been killed quietly and buried in a place he would never be found.

However, Deangelo resurrected himself as Gold hundreds of miles away in a town he was sure the FBI had never heard of. And he was right. Most people in the FBI's Salt Lake field office had no idea where Statenville was, even though it was just a short drive north. That's because it was a typical small agricultural community where the biggest crimes committed were drunk driving and the occasional construction of a meth lab. Yet, Gold made one mistake five years ago that extinguished his anonymity with the FBI: one tidy job tipped off the bureau.

When Deangelo was in Boston, his crime scene signature was a U.S. gold coin from the late 1800s stuffed into the mouth of his victim. The FBI had at least a dozen murder victims demarcated by these rare gold coins, but proving Gold actually committed the crimes was another issue. The fact that most of Gold's victims were members of a rival mob did nothing to encourage the FBI to pursue the futile investigations further. If Gold did their dirty work without all the messy trials, the FBI was satisfied - even if it was wrong.

But Deangelo's signature reappeared about 12 years after the last gold-mouth murder - but it wasn't in Boston. This victim was in Portland - and he wasn't the member of a rival mob. Call it a reflexive flashback. Deangelo later lamented leaving his signature, but he figured no one would make the link. The gumshoe cops in Portland might overlook a detail that would be rehashed and analyzed in Boston. Maybe Deangelo would get lucky. But he didn't.

The man he killed was the 19-year-old son of U.S. Senator Tom Brazenworth, just a kid who got mixed up with the wrong crowd. This wasn't a case that was going to get overlooked. When the FBI was called in to investigate, agents quickly recognized Gold's calling card and began searching for him, eventually discovering his new alias and tracing him back to the town of Statenville. Rumors swirled on the street in Seattle, Portland and Salt Lake that there was a small town in Idaho that had a drug plant, which could easily be considered a commercial production. It was replete with a fleet of vehicles to move the product around the Northwest virtually undetected.

Once the FBI confirmed Deangelo was now going by the alias of Gold, field agents were planted in Statenville under deep cover to gather prosecutable evidence on the operation and determine just how deep it went. Walker and Mercer were those two men, both with impeccable resumes and a past that could only be traced to the one created and vetted by the FBI. Both even had a couple of run-ins with the law on their background checks just so Gold wouldn't get suspicious. The plan was working flawlessly - until now.

Walker had grown impatient waiting for Gold to make a mistake. Over the past five years, Walker and Mercer had amassed a small library's worth of information on the location and movement of Gold's Cloverdale Industries. But the FBI did not embed the pair just to bust Gold - they wanted Gold and everybody that was with him. And that included people selling and moving Cloverdale's drugs on the streets and across state lines. The FBI wanted an epic headline-and Walker was going to give it to them.

But when Walker began tinkering with chemical formulas to tag drugs, Mercer urged him to look elsewhere for ideas. But Walker was undaunted and eventually Mercer relented. The FBI had shut down this particular research program for good reason - all the animals that were undergoing testing were dying horrific and painful deaths. Monkeys were almost ripping themselves apart and dying. Dogs scratched and clawed themselves to death. Officials determined it was a good idea in theory but one that lacked the ethical standard to be tested on humans.

Walker thought he knew better. His minor in chemistry gave him just enough knowledge to be dangerous - and to test the boundaries of what well-trained professional chemists within the bureau had determined was impossible. At first when Walker coerced Mercer to start inserting his chemicals into the drug batches, it was impossible to track the distribution locations of the drugs. Walker wasn't using enough to track an entire shipment. He needed to wreak enough havoc to ensure that it would show up on the CDC's radar. But it was impossible to control his portion, the small batch he had inserted into a shipment.

That's when he had the idea to mix the marker chemical into a batch of drugs he found in Riley Gold's car. The coaching staff knew there were a few players on the team who had recently started doing drugs, so Riley was an easy target. Walker thought he and Mercer would be able to observe Riley and any other teammates dumb enough to try the drug. But Walker never considered the fact that his chemical compound might kill people, despite Mercer's rational warnings. Now, Mercer was the remaining harbinger of convicting information regarding Gold - as well as the only person still alive who played a part in the death of Gold's son.

Walker had done Mercer no favors with his rush to make a splash for the bureau, but for now, Mercer was safe. He was careful to separate himself from Walker, both in the ever-watchful public eye of Statenville and with the bureau. Mercer needed to talk with Cal. Mercer needed to make sure the right story was going to come out in the news media, one that made him a hero, not a villian. Sure, he had participated in heinous acts, but he wasn't like Walker. Mercer was for good and he wanted Cal to write the story that way.

He called Cal again and this time left a voice mail:

"Cal, I'm really worried about you. We need to talk ASAP. Please don't report this story until I can get you what you need to make this story a blockbuster - a confession by Gold."

If the FBI wanted headlines, Mercer was going to give it to them. He wasn't about to let all his work in Statenville be in vain.