192

192

JASMINE

The satellite phone buzzes as the minute hand hits half past fifteen, exactly as Rodriguez promised it would, at midnight. The second ring sounds and I pick up, my voice as solid but the adrenaline still frothing.

We set the words between us, and this time I waste no breath on a greeting before ushering in our verdict.

"I'm listening."

"We'll cooperate, but with conditions." Nico stares at me through the kitchen doorway, his arms crossed as I pace our tiny Dublin safe house. “Our children belong to us, first of all. No protected facilities, no separation from parents.”

“Ms. Taylor, that is not the typical way to witness protection… —"

"This isn't typical witness protection." I shut her up, injecting steel into the words coming out of my mouth. "It's equal negotiation. You have the immunity that we want, we have information you need. But our family stays together."

"The security risks—"

"Are manageable. For six months Nico and I have carried on without federal assistance. We can still do that with the right resources.”

Rodriguez remains silent for a few seconds. An attendant has picked up the phone, and I can hear papers shuffling in the background while two people are talking quietly to one another.

"What other conditions?"

“Second, our testimony is in sealed depositions," he added. “Not public speeches, no media hits, not congressional testimony. I've thought this through carefully. The minute our mugs hit TV, every crime family from six continents wants our heads... for a bounty.”

"That limits our prosecution options—"

“It won’t, but will sure keep your witnesses alive.” I walk to the window and automatically check the street below. “Dead witnesses don't get sued, Agent Rodriguez.”

"Fair point. Continue."

“Third, more than the regular witness protection stipends in terms of financial compensation. Millions in business are being walked away from, intelligence that may never be obtained through conventional channels is on the table.” I look in the black glass, and my reflection stares back at me, a woman I can hardly recognize as she is so different from the naive girl who was here to court Chad five years ago. “All we want is for our children to be safe in the future.”

“Dude, how much are we talking about?”

“Five million a piece, sent to banks no prosecutor could follow.” Nico nods from the other side of the room. “Full free college, free add-on medical coverages, housing supplements to create real lives.”

“That's $20 million a year for a family of four.”

“A steal to put that many organized crime rings out of business up and down the eastern seaboard.” When I look back at Nico his eyes are downcast and wards off my own. “How much did your predecessor's corruption cost the federal government? And no one will say, millions in criminal prosecutions that failed, hundreds of millions to be spent on compromised investigations and wasted resources?"

"Point taken."

“Fourth, our new names are permanent and legally sound. This is not some witness protection shit that you can swap out by government decree; it is how the law defines your citizenship, up to date and complete with paperwork. That is the most crucial condition — that, through it, we guarantee our children will no longer have to flee. They concoct entire fake people — birth certificates, social security numbers, educational records, employment history — lives that would pass any background check.

“It takes months to have this level of documentation properly..”

"Then we wait." I settle down at the kitchen table, where Nico has laid out pictures of the criminal syndicate Rodriguez is having us testify against. "We've been patient this long."

"There's urgency to these prosecutions. Others are expanding operations: “

“Everything is expanding and whether you arrest them next month or next year, they will continue doing so.” A single photograph in my hands of Vincent Benedetto, whom I recall from our extended family gatherings in New York. "But we destroy everything if our identities are compromised due to your impatience.”

Rodriguez sighs deeply. “Ex-husband, former military, right? Sounds like some strategic thinking going on over there.”

Realizing he's lost consciousness momentarily, Nico is the first to break what has been a 5-second silence on his end of the call. "All ex-Army Rangers". Eight more years, then family obligations fell into my lap.

“Well dang, that makes sense considering the hard line in this negotiation.” She sounds a respectful note. "What's your final condition?"

“So we have really held on to that, like ‘well hey, guess what we review all the evidence before it goes into court.’ No surprises, no sudden revelations that might reveal something about our personal life or one of our children.:

"That's highly irregular—"

“But asking the public to nuke their entire social graph in the name of federal prosecutions?” I swipe to the photo of Isabella Moretti and cannot make myself believe she was a Russian spy. “We want to protect ourselves from possible retaliatory information sharing among criminal groups.”

"Such as?"

"The Russian families you mentioned. Her handler might just be someone who sees us as loose ends if Isabella Moretti was one of their operatives.” This is the time that slaps back and the kitchen suddenly feels bone-chillingly cold although the heating works overtime. "Add Russian organized crime to the list of people who want us dead?"

“That is actually part of why we require your testimony. But the Kozlov syndicate has been in the shadows for years—”

“Which makes them very efficient at removing anybody that will pose a threat to their operations.” The barrel is now pointed at Nico who leans in close to the receiver, his voice taking on the tone one word used to send an entire mob family scurrying. "But we're not gonna' paint targets on ourselves for Russian assassins without some kind’a' assurances that we'll be protected against their revenge.”

"What kind of guarantees?"

“The kind where Agent Rodriguez risks her own career to make sure we're safe?" I study the face of Nico, and it looks just like how he appeared whenever his most dangerous deals were made on behalf of his crime cartel. “Except when we give our testimony, and we are killed or disappear too, she has reason to expect a knock at the farm gate with charges of federal witness tampering.”

“And you're asking me to fill out a waiver form?”

“You need some personal skin in the game.” Balancing my phone on one hand, I check the time, twelve fifteen AM here.

"She got away with betraying witnesses so why not? We're ensuring consequences exist."

"This is unprecedented—"

“But then so too is a convincing prosecution, with only civilian witnesses, of organized criminal networks.” The phone is snatched from my hands by Nico. “Agent Rodriguez, you need to get your hands on information that will bring down 6 major crime families and a decades-long operation of the Russian mob. This is valuable intel and we're haggling like businessmen, not fugitives.”

“I get where you're coming from, but the federal population…”

“Repeatedly failed to tackle organized crime.” His voice has the frigid of authority that once froze warring clans in fright.

“Traditional justice has failed these families, as you yourself have said. Witness protection the old-fashioned way has proven somewhat flawed as well. We're proposing something different."

I reach for the phone again. "Something you can actually use," I say.

Rodriguez goes quiet again. Writing, perhaps about the options and our want for them; this time I imagine writing rather than just clicking my keys aloud.

Finally, she says “The metritis and mastitis; this is an issue I need to sit down with my team over.”

"How long?"

"Seventy-two hours. A number of those requests may need approval from Washington, quite possibly the office of the Attorney General.”

"Understood." I turn to Nico, who nods. "But Agent Rodriguez? During that authoring process, keep something important in mind.”

"What's that?"

“Nobody else can say they have all this on Italian and Russian organized crime corruption, but we do. In this quiet his kitchen clock has an unusually loud tick. Without us, you have lost your champion disposal team that has been operating for decades.”

“I get the stakes, Ms. Taylor.”

"Do you?" I took a photo of Maria Santos, the widow Rodriguez showed us yesterday. “Even because from where I'm sitting the stakes are not merely about sending criminals to jail. They are about something as small, in the grand scheme of things, as giving families like Maria's a shot at justice and our kids a chance to lead normal lives; giving you an opportunity to demonstrate that your federal system actually protects those who roll the dice on helping it."

“That is the very game I am fighting.”

We had to fight for our conditions too. I rise and the weight of it all is suddenly too much. "Seventy-two hours, Agent Rodriguez. Then we disappear once more and you can carry on chasing ghosts for another six months.”

I hang up before she can say anything else, placing the phone back on the kitchen table close to the photographs of the crime family. The quiet in our bunker is stifling, heavy with the echoes of what we have sworn to.

"Think she'll agree?" Nico asks.

"She doesn't have a choice." But I slid into his arms for comfort from him, needing the fortress of his muscles. "We're offering her career-defining prosecutions. Every federal agent would jump at that scenario.”

“What if she can't get authorization for our terms?”

“And then we run and keep running until our children are old enough to defend themselves.” My eyes drift to the staircase that leads off this room, up toward Marco and Sofia's strip of blue where they are sleeping in oblivion while their parents whittle away at their entire future. "However, I doubt it would come to that”

"Why not?"

“Because Rodriguez is not Agent Chen. She is committed to justice, not just getting ahead in her career.” I lean back to get a look at him and I see lines of worry that etched deeper every month. "Even still, she'll make it work.”

A text on the satellite phone vibrates "Initial approval from Washington. Standby for revised terms."

Nico and I look down at the phone, suddenly aware that nothing is going back to how it once was. In 72 hours we are going to be in a safe house under some of the largest Federal protection ever provided for star witnesses in huge organized crime cases, or we will be on the run again with new fake IDs and no chance of ever being chased down.

Except, as I stare at Isabella Moretti — the woman whose fucking over got me into this whole mess in the first place — something strikes a chord somewhere deep within my soul and makes my blood curdle.

How many in our old life were actually foreign agents, if she were trained to infiltrate a crime family of the Italian Mafia?