Michael Otero, the Special Agent in Charge from the FBI outpost in San Juan, arrived in the Vieques police headquarters a few minutes before six o'clock along with two more special agents, Gabriel Casas and Greg Miller. Ortiz met him at the door and brought the additional agents back to the command center they had set up in the conference room.
“Lieutenant, this is Special Agent in Charge, Michael Otero,” Ortiz said to Ramos as he entered the room.
“Miguel Ramos,” he said as he shook hands with the SAC.
“Nice to meet you, Lieutenant. Are you in contact with the detectives working the search?”
“Yes. They are reporting to me for this investigation. Would you like to go over the reports?”
“No, that won't be necessary. I am sure you and Ortiz have it under control. I am not here to take over,” he said. “Special Agent Morales, can you and Lieutenant Ramos get Miller and Casas up to speed on where we are with the search effort while I have a quick meeting with Ray?”
“Sure,” Morales replied, and directed the new agents to sit at the conference table to join her and Ramos.
“This way,” Ortiz said, and then led Otero across the hall to Ramos's office for a quick meeting. Ray Ortiz sat down behind Ramos's desk and Otero stood and paced slow, short strides after closing the door.
“Alright, Ray,” he began. “Like I said on the phone, I'm only down here because Diane Flanagan called. Once this hit the national news, Washington shifted to PR mode and brought out the big guns. I'm sure you and Morales are doing everything that can be done to find this kid. I don't want to slow you down.”
“Thanks, Mike.” In the small FBI office in San Juan, the agents all had a close rapport. Ortiz genuinely liked his boss and he knew Otero trusted the team to do the right thing. This was a political problem and not a lack of confidence.
“Since I'm here mostly to help with PR, I'll take over press briefings and handle whatever pushback we get from D.C. I want you to run the whole team including Miller and Casas. I brought them along to help spread the load and knock this out as quickly as possible. Let's have a five-minute briefing every hour at a quarter after the hour just so I can be up to speed on what's going on and then I can fight fires and keep the press and Flanagan off our back. Sound good?”
“Sounds perfect,” Ortiz agreed.
“By the way, we're not the only ones getting pushed on this. They're doing the full-court press. Since the kid likely went missing in the water, don't be surprised if the Coast Guard shows up. If they do, we'll need to assign an agent or two to sit with them but let's hand over the ocean search completely to them.”
“Maybe Miller and Casas.”
“Sounds about right. And if you're right about Isla Roca, then you had better bet someone from Thermion is leaning on their connections in Washington to try and get us off of that island. An interagency battle is not what we need.”
“Right. That's why I went out there myself this morning. And in fact, I think considering the fact that Homeland is likely to show up any minute and boot us off of Isla Roca, I should get back out there as soon as possible and we need to make damn sure the kid is not there before that happens.”
“Good plan. Take Miller and Casas with you. If the Coast Guard is going to show up, that's probably where they'll be anyway. They won't give me a heads-up. I'm going to call a press conference for seven. Anything else I need to know before then?”
“Yeah. Special Agent Morales has been digging hard for any further information on the kidnapping angle. Narco detectives in Fajardo say it's probably not drug related, this isn't the right M.O. She still thinks maybe James Grady is hiding big money in a numbered account and she asked me to request a warrant, but I couldn't come up with any cause. So I'm going to ask Grady myself when I get to Isla Roca.”
“If it's anything like before, the reporters will be all over kidnapping.”
“Right. And really, we don't think this is kidnapping.”
“Good. I'll tell them we have ruled it out so far. Anything else?”
“So far I don't think they are on the scent out at Isla Roca yet, but they are bound to notice an FBI helicopter shuttling back and forth there. And if the Coast Guard comes, then you better bet the place will be crawling with reporters. Plus, they already know it was a dive trip, and the tour operators got the news on the grapevine before we even started looking. I guarantee you they are going to be looking out at El Pliegue soon, if they are not there already. Thing is, any more attention out there, that will just get us shut down quicker. We need to keep that profile as low as we can, as long as we can.”
“Right,” Otero agreed. “I'll see if I can't steer the media back towards the island here, on Vieques. I'll come up with something. That all?”
“Yeah, that's all. Now I'd like to get moving back to Isla Roca.”
“What are you waiting for,” Otero said, with mock impatience. “Grab Casas and Miller and get going.”