The Son of John Devlin Read Online Free Page B

judge will let us go in cutting his sentence.”
    “We’ve already reduced his sentence about as far as it can go,” she said. “But there’s still some wiggle room.”
    “He’s in for?”
    “A somewhat unattractive homicide,” said Emily Lawrence, a sense of irony in her voice.
    Del Rio’s eyes widened in mock horror. “ ‘Justice Department Springs Killer!’ ” he said, smiling. “I can see the headline already.” He sat at the end of the table wearing blue jeans, black lizard cowboy boots, and a brown leather jacket. He sipped his coffee and peered over the top of the container.
    A couple of people at the table laughed, but Emily Lawrence looked coolly at Del Rio. U.S. Attorney Norman Kearney, her superior, was an able man, though he was prone to considering the political calculations of various prosecutorial options.
    “The other factor,” Emily proceeded smoothly, “is that Mr. Jones’s theatrical nature is such that he likes to draw things out over two or three acts. He likes to keep us in suspense. He enjoys that. So we can only push him so far.”
    Emily held a pencil between two fingers of her right hand and tapped it in a barely audible drumming motion on a pad of paper. She appeared quite intense. Her brow was knit, her eyes narrowed. She took pride in her reputation as a skilled narcotics prosecutor. Assistant UnitedStates Attorneys from around the nation had visited Boston to study her investigations and prosecutions, and she’d given presentations at a dozen or more seminars for state and federal prosecutors. Her two biggest scores had involved prosecutions of a heroin ring and a crack cocaine organization. Altogether, in the two cases, she had prosecuted and sent to prison eleven dealers for an average of nine years.
    For some time her energies—all of her energies, it seemed—had gone into her work. She remained single, despite her best efforts. She was childless. And, at the moment, there were no prospects in her life.
    Now, as Emily Lawrence gazed at those seated at the table and contemplated the case at hand, she felt a sense of fear. She feared that the deal would be completed before she could stop it. She feared, as well, that the information about the deal would find its way back through the Boston Police Department to those distributing the narcotics, for she and others had been burned badly by the BPD before.
    There was no question that there were leaks within the department. The only question was the source.
    Emily Lawrence thought back to when she’d developed an informant within an Asian-run heroin ring, a year earlier. For nine and a half months they had plotted and waited, and waited and plotted. Her target had been Raymond Chan, the overseer of the Chinese gangs in Boston, a thin, laconic man who smoked Gauloises with a gold cigarette holder and was rumored to have two wives at two different residences: one in suburban Lincoln, and another, not yet seventeen, somewhere in Chinatown. There were numerous deals about which the informant had provided information, deals the FBI waseager to act upon. But Emily Lawrence had been insistent that they wait until a situation presented itself that allowed them to catch Raymond Chan. Such deals, only the largest, were rare. And they were exceptionally well-concealed, for above all else, Raymond Chan valued his freedom.
    Her conflicts with the FBI throughout the process had been widely known. She had refused to relent when the FBI insisted on raiding one particular deal for fear that Raymond Chan would not show. And he had not shown. And the bust had been held back.
    Finally, the time had come. The informant told of a deal involving three-quarters of a million dollars’ worth of heroin to be delivered to a Chinatown social club. The plans were well laid: Raymond Chan and his men would be involved in a poker game, and the heroin would be brought in by two men from New York in boxes designed to carry poker chips.
    Two days before the