Gone (Michael Bennett)

chain of command was impressive and immediate.
    FBI Assistant Director Dressler personally got on the phone to a senior intelligence analyst at none other than the NSA for a full Homeland Security Total Information Awareness workup on the gangbanger.
    TIA was an NSA supercomputer-fueled data-mining tool that apparently could de-encrypt and scour each and every data source on the planet to find out about an individual. There were no warrants involved, not even any formal requests to phone or credit card companies that could be turned down. The NSA hackers just went in wherever they needed to go and took what they wanted.
    It was supposed to have been shut down after a hue and cry by the ACLU about privacy, but apparently it wasn’t as shut down as the ACLU thought. Which was fine by me. At least in this instance. Bending and even breaking rules was the least we could do in stopping the utter savagery that Perrine was waging on American citizens.
    I admired the heck out of Dressler’s get-her-done attitude. He was even smart enough not to ask us how we came across our info. All he wanted was progress so he could nail Perrine’s ass to the floorboards. Perrine had made a bad mistake when he had killed Agent Mara. The FBI was very, very pissed.
    I admired Diaz’s attitude just as much. The Charles Bronson look-alike had certainly stepped up and taken charge of Neves back at the garage. He was a throwback, one of those all-in all-the-time cops who knew the cold, brutal truth that sometimes the solution to a situation comes at the business end of a billy club.
    “Tell me something, John,” I said as we put our feet up with a cup of coffee at the back of the command center. “This CRASH-unit scandal thing. You didn’t, perchance, have some personal experience concerning that situation, did you?”
    Diaz squinted pensively at his coffee.
    “You know, Mike, now that I think about it,” Diaz said with a wink, “perchance I did.”

CHAPTER 79
     
    IT WAS NOON WHEN he left San Francisco and going on three by the time the Tailor saw the first sign for Susanville on 395.
    He passed a thin cow, a dilapidated barn, some rusting machinery. The land beyond the open window, the washed-out sand and scrub grass, had a lunar quality to it, the awesome mountains in the distance like something from the cover of a cheap sci-fi paperback. The wind whistled in through the window as the sun glinted off the gold wire of his aviator sunglasses. He drove at a steady five miles over the limit and left the radio off.
    The Tailor was average-sized, average-looking, a non-descript bald white man in his early thirties wearing a dark polo shirt and sharply creased stone-colored khakis. He’d been an FBI agent once back east, an army Ranger before that. Now he did things that had bought him a town house in San Fran, a marina apartment in San Diego, and almost a dozen bank accounts stuffed, at his latest tally, with nearly six million dollars in cash.
    No one knew his real name. Among those who hired him, he was referred to simply as the Tailor because he dressed nicely and he always sewed everything up.
    He got off 395 and passed the Walmart and drove into the town. He cruised past gas stations, beat-up pickup trucks in dirt driveways, some equally beat-up-looking folks on the sidewalks. There was supposed to be a prison, but he didn’t see it. He checked his notes and parked on Main Street, across from a saloon. He dialed the number of the contact the cartel had set up.
    “This Joe?” the Tailor said when the line was answered.
    “Yep.”
    “I’m across the street, the white Chevy Cruze.”
    After a minute, a young bearded guy came out. He was broad shouldered and wearing cutoff denim shorts and a Nike T-shirt, the swoosh on it about as faded and washed out as the surrounding prison town. Not even noon, and beer on his breath , the Tailor noted as Joe climbed into the passenger seat.
    “Could you put on your seat belt, please?” was the first thing the Tailor said.
    “Come again?” Joe Six-Pack said.
    “Your seat belt. Could you please put it on?”
    The Tailor waited patiently for the contact to secure the belt before pulling out. California was click-it-or-ticket, and getting pulled over was not on the agenda. Not with what he had in the trunk.
    “Where we headed?” Joe wanted to know.
    “For a spin,” the Tailor said. “Do you know this town?”
    “I should. I’ve lived here all my unfortunate life. Can I