Chapter Sixty-Nine
Jean Lafitte Nature Preserve, Louisiana
THE CABIN LOOKED like a bomb factory.
Walker had made his decision. He had put the debate on justice to rest in his head.
He had come to terms with the fact that he had become the monster Nietzsche had warned against. It was now about protecting Belle and Gloria, and that meant removing certain players from the battlefield, namely Bates, Matheson, and Isaacson.
When that was done, if he was still alive, he would hunt down Vargas.
Then he would turn the weapon on himself.
He had spent the better part of two days building charges and working on the airboat in the shed.
It was always important to have a secondary extract and a new means of insertion and extraction for upcoming missions.
Now that he had it up and running, he would get it out on the swamp in the evening to make sure he could operate it effectively.
With the bombs built and the airboat operational, he was ready.
As he stepped into the cabin wiping his greasy, sweaty hands on his jeans, the first indication that something was off was the burning sensation that followed the impact of the two sharp barbs from the Taser cutting through his T-shirt and burying themselves in his skin.
Excruciating pain trailed the electrical charge that ran down the attached wires, the voltage overriding his central nervous system, resulting in complete incapacitation.
He was briefly aware of his muscles seizing as he fell to the floor.
New Orleans
Even at midday, shadows dappled the cobblestones of the French Market just downriver from Jackson Square. The humid air swirled with the scent of grilled shrimp, popcorn, and freshly baked baguettes. Stanton moved slowly past the vendors, his eyes scanning the crowd.
Stanton’s investigation had gone into overdrive following his meeting with Isaacson the previous afternoon.
It was time to read his partner in on the latest development.
He spotted J.J. near a stall that was selling hand-carved cypress bowls.
She wore jeans and a loose blouse that hid her Glock. He gestured for her to join him.
“I was just about to call you with a big update,” she said by way of greeting.
“Let me go first,” Stanton said as they walked. “I didn’t want to meet at the office.”
“What’s up?” J.J. asked, the concern evident in her tone.
“Remember when I asked you about how you might have reported Babineaux’s fishing boat?”
“Sure.”
“Well, that day Lloyd had us in his office, he said something like ‘Maybe Babineaux is just off on his fishing boat.’ Remember?”
J.J. stopped in her tracks.
“I never told Lloyd about the boat,” he said.
“Fuck. I should have caught that.”
“You didn’t, because you trusted him. You figured that maybe I told him about it. I would have thought the same thing had our positions been reversed.”
“Maybe.”
They continued walking and stopped at a T-shirt vendor. Stanton looked over a few before proceeding.
“There is no easy way to say this: Augie Lloyd is compromised. I think he’s bought and paid for by an El Salvador?based cartel run by a man named Fulgencio Vargas.”
“What?”
“Irene Isaacson gave him information passed to her by Leigh Ann Staub before her murder, information on cops possibly involved in the drug trade here in New Orleans, information he never shared with us.”
“There has got to be another explanation. You’ve met with the DA before. Why didn’t she mention it then?”
“Because Bates was there too. Augie was stringing her along. She trusted him. Just like us.”
They stopped at a wrought-iron bench along the river. Stanton pulled a folded printout from his jacket pocket and handed it to her.
“Isaacson got us a warrant,” he said. “She moved fast and called in a favor with a judge.”
J.J. looked through the tightly spaced records. “All of the prominent wireless carriers.”
“I used the warrant to pull cell signal identifiers—tower pings—from Lloyd’s home, his commute, and his office. Then I looked for commonalities.”
J.J. flipped a page. “You suspected he has a burner.”
“We can’t trace it directly to him, not yet anyway, but I found a number that shows up consistently in those locations, the same locations and times as Lloyd’s FBI phone. That number has been transmitting scrambled data, not regular texts or calls, just encrypted bursts.”
“Using an app?”
“Military-grade encryption. But with that warrant and with Alvaro Mendez’s help, I was able to trace the endpoints. One terminated at a residence in El Salvador belonging to Vargas. Another at the Nectar Sugar facility. And one more at the Four Seasons Hotel on the river.”
J.J. looked up. “Who was staying there?”
“Same guy. Fulgencio Vargas. He’s the CEO of Nectar Sugar. Mendez had ICE confirm that Vargas’s private jet often lands at Lakefront Airport. He stays at the Four Seasons when he’s in town.”
J.J. exhaled. “So, Augie Lloyd has been speaking with Fulgencio Vargas on an encrypted burner phone?”
“Yes.”
“What do we know about Vargas? Is he allied with the cartels?”
“The Bureau doesn’t have a record on him. Google says Vargas officially took control of Nectar a few years ago. His mother had been running it before him, having inherited it from her husband. The mother is in hospice. Guess where?”
“Tulane Medical Center,” she said.
“Exactly.”
“Okay, playing devil’s advocate, maybe he just wanted his mother to have really good care.”
“She’s also in clinical trials for Xylaxyn made by Genyra Pharmaceuticals.”
They walked a few steps in silence, the crowd thinning as the sun dipped below the horizon at the market’s edge.
“You notify the DEA yet?” she asked.
“Not officially. Then Augie will know we are onto him. Maybe he bolts. I asked Mendez to start digging and to keep it quiet. When I suggested that Lloyd might be coordinating something with a Salvadoran sugar czar with potential ties to drug trafficking, Alvaro reminded me that the DEA’s untouchable pearl, their classified CI, is reporting information that supports the Mexican theory.
He also reminded me that John Staub’s old acquaintance in the DEA, Gonzalez, was working in Mexico when he was killed, right after Walker asked about him in the Federal Building. ”
“The Mexican cartel angle is the same one Lloyd keeps pushing on us,” J.J. said.
“It is. I think Lloyd is protecting Vargas, shielding him from DEA scrutiny.”
“That’s a hell of a betrayal.”
“I know,” Stanton said. He turned toward the river, watching the last light fade over a paddle wheel steamer, a tourist boat that went down to the Chalmette battlefield.
“And Leigh Ann Staub?” J.J. asked. “Why was she killed?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe she called Chris Walker to New Orleans out of desperation. Maybe she needed him to do exactly what he ended up doing—killing off the people she thought murdered her son.”
“Or maybe she just needed protection,” J.J. added.
“She could have known she was a dead woman for some reason. Something to do with Connor; information he had on their network or operation. Those bangers were looking for something in that house. They had a reason to torture her.”
“But by then, she’d already unleashed the dogs of war.”
“The truth is in there.”
“Somewhere,” J.J. said.
“What did you find out about Gloria Travois and her granddaughter?”
“That’s why I was about to call you. They each own one car, the Eagle and that old BMW. House was paid off before I was born. No warrants or outstanding traffic tickets. No IRS back taxes.”
“Clean.”
“Yes, but just before I left to meet you, I looked into deeds.”
“Property?”
“There was a property deed transferring the home near the Quarter to Gloria Travois from Alexandre Travois after his passing, along with a second deed.”
“A second deed?”
“A family cabin in the Bayou, near Jean Lafitte.”
Stanton stopped in his tracks.
“Who else knows?” he asked.
“Just us. Let’s go find Chris Walker.”