Russo grabbed a chair and quickly sat down, like he’d suddenly run out of gas—or might faint. His face did actually look a little pale. Remy almost felt bad for him. Not that bad, of course, since the guy had almost certainly jumped on this case because he saw some future value to be gained if he could take down a criminal as big as Aaron Lee. Political careers in this city had been started on far less. Now the weather vane was turning the other way and poor ADA Russo realized that maybe he’d made a serious tactical error.
“What the hell happened, Corey?” Russo finally asked, sounding totally defeated as he sat there pressing his fingers to his temples and making circular motions. “You said you had a man on the inside of Lee’s organization. I get why you don’t want to tell me anything about him, but I have to ask—is this informant incompetent or did he just get paid off?”
Captain Barron shook his head. “The leak is not our informant. They’ve been in the old man’s organization for three years now and are in a position to know exactly what Lee is doing. This person is risking their life for us. There has to be someone in the NOPD or the DA’s office who’s selling us out to Lee.”
Russo considered that for a moment, then pinned Remy and Brooks with a calculating look. “How do we know it’s not the SWAT team you brought in from Dallas? It can’t be a coincidence they’ve been on both operations and they’ve both gone bad.” His eyes narrowed at Remy. “In fact, didn’t you used to work in one of the local parish sheriff’s offices a while back? For all we know, you’ve been in Lee’s pockets for years.”
Remy snorted. “Yeah, that’s right. I orchestrated this entire SWAT cross-training exercise that took months to set up so I’d be in town just in time for Drew to send me out on a mission I had no idea I’d be allowed to go on, so I could tell a criminal I was on the way to bust him. Wow, that’s fucking brilliant. Tell me, Russo, how many cases have you won? With an intellect like yours, you must be up to, what? Two or three by now?”
Russo jumped out of his chair to charge at Remy, who was already on his feet and ready to meet the asshat halfway. Brooks and Lorenzo quickly put themselves between Remy and the man. Not that the ADA looked too serious about taking a swing at Remy, now that he’d seen how much taller and bigger Remy was.
“That’s enough,” Captain Barron said sharply. “We’re wasting time here, Russo. It’s extremely unlikely that one of the SWAT officers from Dallas is our leak. They simply didn’t have access to enough information to compromise either operation.”
Russo looked like he wanted to argue, but then finally shook his head in disgust. “I know. But if it’s not them, what the hell are we going to do? How do we find this leak and plug it?”
“I’ve asked the public integrity bureau to look into the situation, but the chances of them finding anything in the near term is unlikely,” Barron said.
The NOPD Public Integrity Bureau—or PIB—was similar to the internal affairs division in Dallas. The fact that Barron was willing to turn this effort over to the cops in the PIB meant he was serious about finding this leak. But like he said, it would take time.
“What’s the plan if the PIB can’t find the leak in the next day or two?” Remy asked.
The captain sighed. “If we can’t plug the leak before our informant sends us another tip, I’m pulling them out.”
Lorenzo swore. “Dammit, Captain. We’ve been after Lee for years. We’ll never get this close again.”
“Don’t you think I know that? I won’t risk our informant, not even for Lee.” Barron got to his feet. “If you want to put Aaron Lee away, then you need to figure out a way to do it fast—without exposing our source.”
Giving them a nod, the captain walked out of the room.
Remy noticed the captain had been careful to never mention the gender of their undercover informant throughout their entire conversation, or whether the person was a cop or not. His promise to pull the informant rather than put them at risk was something Remy could appreciate.
No sooner had Barron walked out than a uniformed officer stuck his head in the open door. “Mr. Russo, those people you’ve been waiting to talk to have arrived. They’re in the interrogation room at the end of the hall. And by the way, the deputy superintendent will also be sitting in on the meeting.”
Russo’s face turned a few shades paler, but he nodded. “Okay. I might as well get this over with.”
As the ADA left the room, Remy wondered if the man was even going to make it through the meeting with Lee and his lawyers. Russo’s heart was pounding like a drum.
“You guys want to listen in and see what Lee and his lawyers have to say?” Lorenzo asked. “It might be interesting.”
Remy doubted that but nodded anyway. “Why not? If nothing else, it’ll be fun to see Russo squirm.”
It turned out that watching Russo get grilled by Aaron Lee and six of his high-priced lawyers wasn’t fun at all. In fact, it was kind of painful to see. From where he stood behind the one-way glass with Brooks, Drew, and Lorenzo, Remy winced as Lee and his lawyers eviscerated the ADA.
Russo tried to trip him up, but the old man was too good. Lee wouldn’t have said anything incriminating even if his lawyers hadn’t been there. The worst part of having a front row seat to the whole thing was watching Lee gloat about the fact that the police hadn’t found anything to arrest him for and never would. He was even threatening to sue the NOPD and the city of New Orleans for everything he could get. The man was thumbing his nose at the ADA like it was all a game to him.
Beside Remy, Drew let out a snort of disgust. “As long as Lee has someone inside the department, we’re never going to get close to him. Even if the informant is able to get word to us on where Lee is keeping the meth, the son of a bitch will know we’re coming before we get there.”
“Then why do we keep chasing our tails by trying to play whack-a-mole with this guy and his stash of crystal meth?” Remy asked. “Isn’t there a way we can get a step ahead of Lee and hit him someplace he’s not expecting? Where does he run his business from? I mean his legitimate business, not his shell companies.”
Drew shook his head. “He’s got a big old plantation to the west of Kenner, up near the lake. Everyone in this city knows he’s got more incriminating evidence there than we have in our entire NOPD evidence warehouse.”
Remy remembered driving around that part of the shores of Lake Pontchartrain when he was younger. There were some pricey properties up there. “If everyone knows, why can’t we get a warrant for that place?”
It was Lorenzo who answered. “Never going to happen. He’s too well connected with the right people in this city and even more in Kenner. The fact that we’ve gone after him twice and missed both times would make it even harder.”
Remy ground his jaw as he continued to watch Russo flounder in his battle of wits with Lee. They needed to do something completely different, or the next raid would end up the same as their first two. Worse, it might end up with them finding the narcotics squad’s informant dead in a swamp somewhere.
He turned away from the carnage in the interrogation room to look at Lorenzo. “I know my guys and I are outsiders here, but what if I told you I had a plan that had a good chance of taking down Aaron Lee and keeping your informant alive?”
