Chapter 15

I was lying underneath a beat up old Chevy, changing the oil and letting my mind wander again. The whole episode with Renata, ending that day in Sergi’s compound, was six months in my past, now, but I still thought back to it a lot.

As predicted, the first thing they did after their agents stormed into the compound, was slap me in cuffs and haul me out. Robles made a noble effort to convince them we were all playing for the same team, but these guys were already pissed at the Marshals, and weren’t inclined to do him any favors.

I don’t know what happened to Renata. Yuri’s trial is coming up, and I heard from Lowenstein she was still listed as a prosecution witness. It seems she’s safe and sound, for now.

After I was pulled out of the compound, they hustled me to the FBI office in Miami and locked me in an interrogation room for a long time. I wasn’t sure how long since there wasn’t a clock in the room. I was just left to cool my heels. That wasn’t too surprising. I’m sure the mess at the compound brought up a lot of questions they had to sort out first, and Barrett probably threw them for a loop.

Eventually they did get around to talking to me. They seemed pretty hell bent on finding something to charge me with. First it was questions about my working with Barrett or the Russians. They had this elaborate theory that I was hired muscle for them. It didn’t really stand up to any reasoning, but they went at me pretty hard with that theory.

After I didn’t crack, they tried a variation of that, accusing me of shooting the lady Marshal. When that didn’t pan out they regrouped and tried to find a way to charge me with the various dead Russians. That they had a better case for, since I had in fact killed those men, but considering the circumstances I was confident any half-decent defense attorney would get me off if it came to a trial.

I was glad they didn’t know about Ronny and his gang. I had no remorse for what I had done to them, but it would be a lot harder to talk my way out of it.

They held me for two days in that interrogation room. I managed to get a couple of terrible fast food meals brought to me, and the occasional bathroom break; but other than that I saw those drab, white walls, and that was it. I didn’t even get one of those one way mirrors you see in the movies to stare at.

Near the end of Day Two they just opened the door and said I could go. I was surprised they had given up, right until I got out and found Lowenstein and Robles in the lobby, waiting for me.

“I guess I have you to thank for my freedom,” I said to Robles as I shook their hands.

“Nope,” he said, shaking his head. “They were pretty pissed at my whole office, and didn’t want to listen to me much. It’s this guy you have to thank. He really pulled out all the stops.”

I looked at Lowenstein, who gave a shrug.

“Don’t be modest,” Robles continued. “He got the article in the next day’s paper, and it was a doozy. Most of the papers you had sent him were worthless, but there were some things that connected the Russians with Barrett, and to people in the local departments. His article was a mix of scathing indictment of corruption in our law enforcement, and exposé of trafficking and forced prostitution in Florida.”