Rarities Unlimited 04 - The Color of Death

all it’s worth,” Kennedy said. “Two couriers down, two grandparents dead—”
    “Last I heard,” Doug interrupted gently, “the grandparents worked with South American gangs.”
    Kennedy shrugged. “Yesterday’s news. Today we have four—count ’em, four—victims of a violent crime wave that’s sweeping the entire yada yada yada.”
    “Nothing new there.”
    “How about you?” Kennedy said, killing the TV with a snap of the remote control. “You have anything new?”
    “All gem deliveries are present and accounted for.”
    “Screw the stones. I want the guy that did the Purcells. I want some real evidence to tie the Purcells to the South American gangs. I want the guy that whacked the courier in Quartzite.”
    “She died last night.”
    “You think I don’t know? It led the news this morning. They have a continuous loop of Tawny interviewing the grieving husband and sister at the hospital. Thank God the bitch didn’t have kids. That’s all we’d need.”
    Doug grimaced and waited for Kennedy to get to the point, whatever it was. Doug didn’t think the boss had called him there just to complain about the media. Doug knew he was coming real close to getting a second nastygram in his file over Sam Groves. Doug hoped, fervently, that it wasn’t going to happen right now. He didn’t want to be the one who shoved a CI into the line of fire.
    Neither did he want his own ass swinging in the breeze.
    Damn Sam Groves anyway. How did I let him talk me into this?
    Again!
    Kennedy rearranged the ashtray on his desk, fiddled with alighter, and finally gave in to the nicotine urge. He unlocked his desk drawer and scrounged around way in back until he came up with a dog-eared pack that had two cigarettes left in it. He was going to quit some day. He was sure of it.
    But not today.
    He lit up, drew down hard, and expelled a long, satisfying plume before he asked, “How long are you going to put up with this CI crap from Groves?”
    “I’m not sure what you mean, sir,” Doug said.
    “Bullshit. Just because that’s what Groves is feeding you, don’t expect me to eat it and like it.”
    Doug resisted the urge to shift his feet or put his hands in his pockets. He’d really hoped for a few more days before he balanced on the edge of this particular abyss.
    “Special Agent Groves is following Bureau policy in regard to his CI,” Doug said. “Considering the amount of violence associated with our present investigation, it’s natural that he would be concerned for the safety of his CI and therefore have a particularly strong interest in keeping the CI’s identity under wraps.”
    “How do you know he isn’t just jacking off on his own?”
    “Groves has a history of closing cases. I trust his record.”
    “He has a history of being a pain in the butt,” Kennedy said.
    “Yes, sir. A useful pain.”
    Kennedy grunted. “Do you know the informant’s identity?”
    “Not quite.”
    “What the hell does that mean?”
    “I know enough,” Doug said carefully, “to be comfortable with the position that the CI will be able to do our strike force some good.”
    “So make me comfortable too.” Kennedy flicked the cigarette against the ashtray and pinned Doug with the kind of glance that made grown men sweat.
    “The CI won’t do us any good dead,” Doug said.
    “That’s supposed to make me comfortable?”
    “We have good reason to believe that if the CI’s identity becomesknown,” Doug said, “the same people that murdered the Purcells will murder the informant.”
    “I’m not suggesting we call Tawny and put it on the nightly news,” Kennedy said curtly. “We’ll keep it in the family.”
    “Sir, you know that leaks are inevitable.”
    “Are you saying you don’t trust me?”
    “No, sir. Not at all.” Doug thought quickly about the safest path through this minefield without blowing up his career. “I’m saying that, even with the best will in the world, the more people who know a secret, the more likely it is to end up on the news.”
    “Are you refusing to tell me what you know?”
    “No, sir.”
    Kennedy waited.
    Silently Doug cursed the impossible position he was in. “All I know is that Natalie Cutter had some information that might have led to some other information that would be useful to the strike force. Groves is following up.”
    “Colton ran the Cutter name on his own,” Kennedy said. “He found a whole lot of nothing.”
    “That’s what Groves told me after