Little Bight Bay
Saint John, United States Virgin Islands
Monday, November 17, 5:04 P.M.
Maggie McCain looked out the mouth of the bay and saw on the big water the crisscrossing sailboats, ones she knew were headed to find a mooring buoy or marina to tie up for the night. She was glad to be anchored in her protected cove, with the option of staying there the night or making the run back to the resort after dusk. Her boat, her choice.
As was her ritual, she had uncorked one of the bottles of nice merlot and poured her traditional sunset glass of wine. She had done it countless times in more anchorages than she could recall, and while the wine and the scenery were as sublime as ever, it now felt somewhat mechanical.
She had sipped at the wine, hoping it might loosen the knot that had formed in her stomach after she had gone back to read Philly News Now. She wondered if she should have asked Matt Payne if her not being considered a “person of interest” meant anything more than the obvious. And then there was the update to the article that mentioned the missing case workers from the Sanctuary.
She had closed down that window and gone to the text message page, read over the exchanges, then, shaking her head, signed out of it.
She was about to do the same with her e-mail account when a new e-mail appeared in her queue. Like the majority of the recent—and unread—e-mails sent to her in-box, this one was color-coded in bright red, indicating the sender had assigned it Highest Priority.
It was another message from one of her assistants at Mary’s House.
Maggie was about to ignore it, too, but then read the subject line—and her heart skipped a beat.
Attempted murder?
She clicked on it and read:
From: Charlotte Davies <c.d@maryshouse.org>
Date: 17NOV 0501
To: Maggie McCain work <m.mcm@maryshouse.org>
CC: Maggie McCain home <magpie417@libertymail.com>
Subject: PLEASE REPLY!!! Attempted Murder at Work
Attachment: 1
Dear Maggie,
I pray to God that you are safe and that you get this e-mail fast.
Someone just tried to kill Chantal as she walked up to the home!
I saw them — two teen boys on a motorcycle. The one on the back had a pistol. I heard the shots, looked out, and saw Chantal fall face-first to the ground.
She is alive! Somehow all those bullets missed. But the next girl may not be that lucky.
PLEASE READ THE ATTACHED NOTE NOW!
If whoever it is carries out this threat to kill another girl, THERE ARE ONLY 45 MINUTES LEFT in the next hour!
The police are here. So they say the next one won’t be here.
We have text-messaged all our residents who are not on the premises that there is an emergency and to call in. Six have yet to do so. We are following up with calls.
Maggie, I don’t know if you’ll get this — I have been calling and e-mailing since Krystal was killed in your home — but I don’t know how else to try to reach you.
I will do anything you want me to. I just don’t know what else to do.
In the Service of the Lord and His Children,
Charlotte
Maggie clicked on the attached file. It was a photograph of a handwritten note in a pizza box. The lined page that had been torn from a spiral notebook—not unlike the ledgers she had—was on top of a half-eaten pizza.
And then she gasped.
While the paper had soaked up grease from the pizza, causing the ink to run and blur a few words, the message was clear:
The blood of this girl is on your hands
Just like those two women and Krystal
One of your girls dies EVERY HOUR until I hear from you
And I get back what Krystal took
Call me now! 215-555-3452
This is not the same person as the man I’ve been texting. We have already basically reached an agreement.
So, it’s Ricky, then? It’s not the same handwriting that’s in the ledgers.
But who else but Ricky would know about the connection between Mary’s House and Krystal and “what Krystal took”?
And he killed her. After raping and badly beating her.
She saw the clock in the top right corner of her screen. It had just ticked off another minute. It showed: MON 5:09 PM.
She glanced back at Charlotte’s e-mail. The time stamp showed it had been sent a minute after five. And Charlotte had said in it that only forty-five minutes were left.
Oh my God!
So he could kill another girl after five forty-five.
And she said six girls are unaccounted for?
She hit REPLY:
From: Maggie McCain home <magpie417@libertymail.com>
Date: 17NOV 0511
To: Charlotte Davies <c.d@maryshouse.org>
Subject: RE: Attempted Murder at work
Charlotte:
Got it. I’m heartbroken over the news, and soooo very sorry.
Please tell Chantal that I’m praying for her and everyone else there.
This is all so crazy. I’ll be back in touch ASAP.
First, however, know that I AM RIGHT NOW contacting him so that he does not try anything else.
Maggie
She sent that. Then she launched the video and telephone call program and clicked on the icon that mimicked the ten-digit keypad, entering the telephone number from the image of the greasy note and clicking CALL.
It rang and rang, then finally went to voice mail.
“Yo, talk to me,” the arrogant male’s recorded voice answered. He sounded Puerto Rican.
It gave Maggie goose bumps.
That has to be Ricky!
She clicked on the END CALL button.
“Why the hell didn’t he answer?” she said aloud. “Is he already running down another girl?”
She quickly went back to the text messaging window, signed back in, then clicked the icon that created a new text message. She typed in Ricky’s number—too fast, and had to correct it twice—then tabbed to the new bubble:
What else do I say?
The clock on her screen ticked off another minute. It read: 5:13.
She quickly attached the same image of the page with the girls’ names she had sent earlier and clicked SEND.
She looked back at the clock.
Half an hour.
Now what?
She stared at the screen, and two minutes later a new bubble appeared:
He did not deny being Ricky, she thought, then sent:
He took a long moment before replying:
Now what?
I have to stall him.
And tomorrow I will need another day.
I have what he wants. He can wait.
Then her stomach really knotted up as she read:
You bastard! Enough with the threats!
She exhaled audibly.
But they’re not idle threats . . .
I need time to figure this out.
He’s got to learn not to fuck with a McCain.
She sent it. Five minutes passed before he replied:
Good. I got to him, at least in some small way.
Maggie looked at the laptop’s clock: 5:30.
But now what? Two hours to do what?
She stared out at the ocean. The sun had almost set. It was casting out the bold, dramatic rays of golden light that always made her feel at peace.
Gazing at it all now, she just felt numb.
A minute later another text message bubble popped up:
Maggie looked at it for a long moment.
What is it about these books that is worth so much? That these two will kill?
And why can’t they just kill each other?
Then—problem solved.
“Is that possible?” she said aloud.
She shook her head, then turned and watched the sunlight slip away.
Players Corner Lounge
Front and Master Streets, Philadelphia
Monday, November 17, 5:15 P.M.
Dmitri Gurnov was back down on his knees, looking again inside the door of the old steel safe. It was three feet tall, about that wide, and bolted to the concrete floor in the corner of the small, dirty office. He had to use his cell phone as a makeshift flashlight because the dim light from the bare bulb hanging from the power cord overhead was worthless.
He first had gone in the safe to make sure that there was enough cash before he sent the message to the woman saying that he had the money she demanded. It wasn’t the entire two hundred grand—more like fifty grand—but he never intended on delivering it all. He was getting just enough, if it came to that point, to look to her like he had the full amount.
She won’t know because she will be dead.
And this problem will go away for good.
Then I have to deal with Carlos Perez. And eventually Ricky.
Gurnov’s go-phone had then vibrated. Its small screen showed a message from Julio:
And I have to pay for that damn lost coke!
He texted back:
It was more or less quiet in the office, the only sound the heavy bass beat thumping through the walls from the lounge’s sound system. The bar crowd was already building.
On the floor near Gurnov were four clear plastic 750-milliliter bottles—the labels had “Viktor Vodka” in large red Cyrillic-like lettering, suggesting it was genuine imported Russian, but the very small print on the back stated it was made in a Kensington distillery—that he had tossed from a cardboard box imprinted with the same cheap vodka’s typeface.
Gurnov had put a five-gallon brown garbage bag inside the box, and into that he was carefully stacking the cash he was taking from the safe.
Some of the money was in crisp, large-denomination bills and neatly banded in Federal Reserve Bank inch-wide currency straps. The color-coded kraft paper bands that wrapped around the fifty-dollar bills were printed with brown stripes and “$5,000”; the bands printed with mustard yellow stripes and “$10,000” held one-hundred-dollar bills that appeared to be new.
The majority of the money, however, was in tall stacks of rumpled ten- and twenty-dollar bills. These were bound by thick red rubber bands, under which were yellow sticky-back notes with a hand-scrawled “$2k.”
After closing the garbage bag, he looked back in the safe. There were three spiral notebook ledgers, and he wondered why Ricky Ramírez had not taken at least one with him to Atlantic City and Florida.
On top of the ledgers was an unmarked brown paperboard box. A clear plastic box with a label bearing a CVS Pharmacy logotype was near it. The label read “Insulin Syringes—25 count,” and the plastic box held maybe twenty. He tossed the syringes into the vodka box, then opened the unmarked brown box. In it were four glass vials, each about the size of a roll of dimes and labeled “Succinylcholine.” He removed one.
I could just shoot her. But Nick said the muscle relaxant leaves no trace.
He was right how fast it took out the holdouts.
Half a needle and their heart stopped in minutes.
—
When Nick Antonov had given Gurnov the assignment two weeks earlier, he had told him only a little about who it was that Gurnov was to inject—and even less as to why. Antonov had simply announced that they were troublemakers, ones who had been evicted from—but refused to leave—the last few row houses that stood in a large section of Northern Liberties. Antonov added that they were holding up a Diamond Development project and had to go. And that was it.
Gurnov had figured out the rest, a lot of it from information Antonov had shared piecemeal over time. The most important part being: Yuri Tikhonov.
Gurnov knew that the forty-eight-year-old businessman had not become a billionaire by being a nice guy. He had served in the SVR as an intelligence officer with men who also went on to become wealthy beyond belief—as well as the highest officials in the Kremlin.
“Including the president and prime minister,” Antonov had said, his tone boastful. “That is why the drug cartels fear Yuri, even as they invest in his projects.”
Gurnov did not know if that last part was in fact true. He saw the Colombians and Mexicans as irrational and fearless—savages mad with power and money. But it did not matter what he thought. He was a foot soldier who had been sent to solve a problem. And, more or less effortlessly, he had.
But the information he had pieced together he thought could one day be beneficial.
What he learned was that Yuri Tikhonov was heavily invested in a Philadelphia company called Diamond Development—As are maybe the drug cartels, he thought, but who is to know?—and that Diamond was behind the Lucky Stars Casino on eighty acres of prime riverfront and the giant new coliseum to be built in Northern Liberties. And that those were part of a city program called PEGI.
Gurnov figured there probably were other Diamond projects, as PEGI was under the City of Philadelphia’s Housing and Urban Development. Its chairman, a councilman named Badde, was pushing the master plan of rebuilding the area—including the riverfront casinos, the high-end mix of luxury condominiums and restaurants, theaters and upscale retailers. And of course what would be the area’s iconic anchor: the entertainment complex with sixty thousand seats under a retractable roof.
PEGI, using Title 26 Eminent Domain, had seized the necessary properties. As that was happening, the troublemakers went all over Northern Liberties and Fishtown plastering handbills. They were home-printed with a crude image of a black politician wearing a tiny black bow tie and “Councilman Rapp Badde WANTED for Crimes Against the Poor & Disadvantaged of Philly! Last Seen Stealing Homes & Tearing Down Neighborhoods! Help Stop Him, Or Yours Is Next!”
Then the troublemakers, ignoring the eviction notices, stood their ground. It brought Turco Demolition & Excavation—which had been tearing down all but those few remaining properties and scraping the multi-block area back to bare dirt—to a halt.
Yuri Tikhonov had not been pleased—neither with the delay nor with Badde’s inability to deal with it.
Thus, early on the first day of November, Gurnov found himself knocking on the door of each holdout. He had offered his hand as he introduced himself as one supporting their cause—and when they shook it, he jabbed the needle of the syringe that was in his left hand into their forearm. After injecting the muscle relaxer, he removed the needle, pushed them back in the house, and closed the door.
Shortly thereafter, the demolition crew had gotten a call from someone saying they were with HUD: “You’re good to go.” The bright yellow nine-ton bulldozers and the red-and-white Link-Belt crane swinging a two-ton forged steel wrecking ball went back to work. Almost immediately, the massive steel wrecking ball broke through one of the row houses—and came out with one of the dead troublemakers snagged on it. Police then discovered the bodies of the other holdouts.
It had been messy, and caused another day’s delay in the demolition, but the troublemakers were gone, the news media calling their cause of death a mystery.
And, knowing all this, Gurnov had what he considered a hole card to play if ever he fell out of Antonov’s graces.
—
Gurnov removed one of the glass vials labeled “Succinylcholine” from the brown paperboard box and put it in with the syringes in the plastic box. He placed the paperboard box of vials back in the safe and closed and locked it. Then he stood and carried the vodka box containing the cash and succinylcholine and needles to the battered wooden desk, his foot finding a plastic bottle of vodka as he went.
There the light of the overhead bulb was better. But he had to make room on the messy desktop. In the process he knocked some forms to the floor. Then he saw that the small box of used cell phones was still there—and next to it Ricky’s black laptop computer and small digital camera he’d used for posting the online ads for the girls.
I wonder why he did not take them to Florida?
Did he forget?
I could call him again, but it is too late.
He will have to figure out what to do when he is there.
The light from the bulb flickered, and when he looked up, he saw it swaying slightly. He then heard, in addition to the heavy driving beat from the sound system, the headboard banging in a bedroom above the office.
If that is Ricky’s new one, it is only a matter of time before she causes some problem.
I need out of this business.
His cell phone rang. The caller ID announced that it was Antonov.
“Everything okay, Nick?” he answered in Russian.
“Did you get in touch with Carlos?”
“Yes,” Gurnov lied. “It is all set.”
“When and where?”
Gurnov sighed audibly.
“You have a problem with me asking about an important shipment?”
“No, Nick. But are you going to micromanage this? Or can I do my damn job?”
“You have any more of the muscle relaxer?”
Gurnov almost dropped his phone. What?
“Why, Nick?”
“Yes or no?”
“I’ll have to check the safe. But it should be there.”
“Get it. I will let you know if it will be necessary.”
“Carlos?”
Antonov ignored the question and said, “Call me when you know how much there is.”
Gurnov, shaking his head in wonder, looked at his cell phone as the screen went dark.
Then it suddenly lit back up with a text message box:
Center City?
He looked at the cardboard vodka box.
He texted back: “Okay.”
Penthouse Suite 2400
Two Yellowrose Place, Uptown Dallas
Monday, November 17, 4:45 P.M. Texas Standard Time
The chief executive officer of OneWorld Private Equity Partners was leaning back in his black leather chair, the heels of his crocodile-skin Western boots resting on the massive stone desktop and his fingers laced behind his head. Mike Santos was watching an intense Bobby Garcia pace in front of the desk. They were alone in the cavernous office, listening to Nick Antonov’s voice over the speaker of the desktop telephone.
Antonov, in Philly, in his casino office, was saying: “But did Palumbo know Jorge Perez had any connection with the Cubans wrecking that boat and drawing so many police? Because if he did, I think that that would be the first thing a chief of staff would tell his senator.”
Garcia had a mental image of the portly forty-year-old Charles A. Palumbo, Esquire, and his senatorial office colleague, Anthony N. Navarra, forty-six—both wearing khaki shorts, baggy Cuban shirts, and foolish grins—almost staggering off the casino’s big boat onto the dock at Lost Key Resort.
“No, he didn’t,” Garcia said evenly. “And I don’t think that he—for that matter, neither Chuck nor Tony—really gave a damn it even happened. Keep in mind that they spent the day drinking during the Poker Run. They were too interested in Tatiani and the girls from Kiev. I know they didn’t see it happen.”
“You can be sure?”
“Yeah. Jorge already had the go-fast tied up at the marina. But it’s a moot point. When the Cubans crashed on that island, word spread quick over the radios and phones and around the bars. There was a shitload of bitching about immigration reform, and I bet they took that back to their boss.”
Antonov considered that, then said, “If such is the case, good then. I will tell Yuri. And keep a closer eye on Perez. Yuri was concerned, especially because of the recent troubles with Diamond Development. He does not tolerate such distractions. Let us say there is not complete confidence in a certain member of the majority partnership.”
“Why didn’t Yuri call us and ask about this?” Santos said.
“He is dealing with the new casino in Macau and asked that I handle this.”
Garcia thought that Antonov had replied quickly—too quickly. It sounded like a prepared answer.
Garcia looked to Santos, who mouthed Bullshit!, then said evenly, “Nick, we don’t anticipate there being any problems with any development deal with our good friend the councilman-at-large, if that is what you’re referring to.”
Antonov was quiet a moment.
“I am to assume you have additional photographs?”
—
Ten minutes earlier, Santos and Garcia had shared a slideshow over a video stream between their computers.
“Where were these taken?” Antonov had said, watching images of Palumbo and Navarra that were being played from Garcia’s laptop.
The slideshow started with shots of the two pasty middle-aged men sitting at a seaside tiki bar. It then showed them, first Palumbo and then Navarra separately, with young women in large luxury hotel rooms that had views overlooking the bar and the ocean.
“At Queens Club,” Santos said, “the Yellowrose property on Grand Cayman. Cavorting with quote British Overseas Territory citizens unquote. I hear it said that sex tourism is a rising industry.”
“What do they call that? A ‘constituent fact-finding trip’?” Antonov said, either ignoring or missing his witticism.
“Simply a fact-finding trip,” Garcia said. “Their constituents would be in their home state.”
“Right,” Antonov said sharply, clearly annoyed at the correction.
“This shot showing Palumbo’s so-called manhood,” Santos said lightly, “would seem to give new meaning to the title ‘chief of staff’—or at least call into question his right to use it.”
The image changed to one of Navarra with two women.
Garcia chuckled. “Maybe they should change both of their titles to simply ‘foreign affairs adviser.’”
“This was an official trip?” Antonov said, his tone humorless.
“Absolutely,” Garcia said.
“Who paid?”
“Who else? OneWorld did.”
“And this is legal?”
“Excuse me?” Garcia said, mock-indignant. “As corporate counsel of OneWorld, Mr. Antonov, sir, I can assure you that absolutely every act of this company is conducted to the letter of the law.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“Nick, for your edification,” Garcia then said, “I’ll recite from memory from the ‘United States Senate Ethics Manual’—said title being, I might add as a sidebar, a classic oxymoron. In chapter four, I believe on page one-twelve, it states quote For expenses other than those enumerated in Section 311(d) as amended by the Act . . . yada, yada, yada . . . if an expense is deemed by a Senator to be related to official duties then the expense may be paid with either (or a mixture of) Senate funds, the Senator’s personal funds, or—”
“Can you get to it?” Antonov interrupted.
“I’m getting there, Nick,” Garcia shot back. “Sounds like you’re not having a good day.”
Garcia had exchanged a glance with Santos, who smiled and nodded, appreciating that Garcia was sending Antonov the less than subtle message that he wasn’t easily pushed around.
“Patience is a virtue,” Garcia went on, in a lighter tone. “You should write that down. I was just getting to ‘it’ here: Quote paid with the Senator’s personal funds, or in the case of ‘fact finding,’ funds provided by a third party otherwise consistent with applicable requirements governing such activities. Unquote. OneWorld would be that third party.”
“And the purpose of this fact-finding trip was for what?”
“The Cayman Islands have no casinos, as I’m sure you know, being in the business,” Santos said. “No gambling, outside the financial industry, that is. Ironic, no, what with all that investment money flowing through there? I envision building a Caymans’ version of GoldenEye. But bigger and of course with gaming.”
“What is this GoldenEye?”
“It’s in Jamaica, which has the closest casinos, a dozen of them. But Kingston’s a forty-five-minute flight.”
“And GoldenEye is . . . ?”
“The resort that used to be James Bond’s home. Or at least where Ian Fleming wrote double-oh-seven spy novels, including GoldenEye. Considering your boss’s background, I really thought you would have known all about that.” He paused, and when it was clear Antonov was not going to respond, he went on: “Okay, so the senator sent his two top advisers—or perhaps it was Palumbo who had the senator send him and Tony—to George Town to open a dialogue on gaming with His Excellency the governor. I understand a follow-up with the senator has been scheduled there.”
Santos grunted as the slideshow continued.
“And the other purpose, I suppose,” he said, “being to determine if Palumbo can maintain his tiny hard-on longer with one, two, or three partners. . . .”
“Or maybe one underage?” Antonov said.
“Nick,” Santos then said evenly, “it’s not if she is or isn’t. It’s the appearance thereof.”
Garcia chuckled.
“What?” Antonov snapped.
“Hell, even Palumbo said it this weekend,” Garcia explained. “He was feeling no-pain drunk at the time.”
“And what did he say, Bobby?” Antonov pressed.
“Navarra, on his pious high horse, was babbling on about all the good they do in Washington ‘for the people.’ Then Palumbo said, ‘But, you know, as an individual you can do millions of things right. Mess up once, that’s what you’re remembered for.’”
“Fact is,” Santos said, “a married forty-year-old snorting a small mountain of coke off the ass of a seventeen-year-old Russian hooker ain’t exactly ‘messing up once.’”
Garcia, shutting down the slideshow, added: “Particularly when he’s caught with different girls in different locations. . . .”
“Nick, I’m not sure what additional photographs you might be inferring,” Bobby Garcia said, unconvincingly. “I’m just saying that we don’t anticipate any problems with any development deals.”
Antonov grunted. “Well, no problems is good to hear, Mike. But being a politician, Badde talks much more than he accomplishes. He is, to use that quaint American phrase, only a big fish in a small puddle.”
Garcia and Santos exchanged grins, knowing it was not worth it for either of them to say, “Small pond.”
“Unfortunately,” Antonov went on, “I had to send my man to take care of what he should have handled. There were obstacles, human ones, holding up the project. Badde proved either unwilling or unable to deal with it. Which suggested to Yuri that, to use another American phrase, Badde plays out of his league. And that is dangerous.”
“Okay,” Santos said. “So we’ll keep an eye on that, on him.”
“Speaking of a bigger fish in a bigger puddle,” Garcia said, seeing Santos smirk at that and shake his head, “when you report back to Yuri, tell him we need the senator to have a word with someone at DHS.”
“U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Nick,” Santos put in helpfully, “is under the Department of Homeland Security. Pressure from the top down works best.”
“I am well aware,” Antonov said, not pleasantly, “having suffered my own time dealing with them.” He paused, then added, “Perez told me that Palumbo and Navarra enjoyed themselves this weekend.”
“Clearly,” Garcia said, “and I reminded them this weekend to talk to their boss about CIS greasing the skids on getting our visas approved. Maybe suggest that CIS not sweat every detail on certain applications. Palumbo said it already had been done, that he’d personally set up the call with him and the DHS undersecretary who handles CIS. But we’re just not seeing anything change.”
“The delay at CIS is our biggest bottleneck, Nick,” Santos added. “My investors are sitting on a lot of cash that must move. They are anxious. But without their first investment in the EB-5 visa being approved—they want those green cards for their families—they will not dump another dime in.”
Antonov grunted. “Perhaps there would be more response if certain photographs found their way to Mrs. Palumbo. . . .”
“Now, that’s just damn devious, Nick,” Garcia said with a chuckle. “As we say here in Texas, ‘Cold as an ex-wife’s heart.’”
Liberties Bar
502 N. Second Street, Philadelphia
Monday, November 17, 4:45 P.M.
A grim-faced Jason Washington crossed the room to where Matt Payne, Jim Byrth, and Mickey O’Hara were at the bar.
“Gentlemen,” he said evenly, his deep tone sounding flat and tired.
Washington patted O’Hara on the back.
“I trust you’re doing well, Michael?”
O’Hara nodded. “Well enough, considering. Thanks. And thank you for having Matt fill me in on the other case workers. I updated the story with their names.”
Washington’s eyes went to Payne, then Byrth, then back to O’Hara.
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. O’Hara,” Washington said.
“Of course not, Lieutenant,” O’Hara said, nodding.
“But you’re welcome,” Washington added. He then said, “Hope I didn’t keep you waiting. I had to get a ride from Highway Patrol. The Crown Vic I was given to drive while they repaired the one they gave me last week has also died. I suggested that they start using bigger Band-Aids.”
“I don’t even have a car,” Payne said.
“Unlike my unfortunate circumstance, Matthew, that is not because the city has slashed our budgets.”
“It’s because,” O’Hara put in, raising his drink toward him, “you keep totaling them, Marshal Earp.”
The bartender, a great big guy, came up and slid a cocktail napkin onto the bar before Washington.
“What can I get you, Jason?”
Washington looked at the others’ drinks, then announced, “I need something strong, Craig. How about a Jameson twelve-year-old martini, please.”
“You got it,” the bartender said, then reached down, produced a battered stainless steel shaker, and walked down the bar.
Washington turned to the others and said, “Well, the good news is you won’t have to worry about Carlucci looking over your shoulder. He and Denny are busy dealing with Commissioner Gallagher. The bad news is the same as the good news.”
In the background came the sound of ice cubes rattling as the bartender vigorously worked the cocktail shaker.
“What happened with the interview?” Payne said.
“It was not good, Matthew.”
The bartender returned and placed a martini glass on the napkin, then with a grand flourish poured the golden Irish whisky.
“Thank you,” Washington said to him, then picked up the glass and held it up as he intoned, “Fiat justitia ruat caelum.”
As Payne raised his glass, he thought, “Let justice be done though the heavens fall”?
What triggered that?
They all touched glasses.
Payne, after taking a sip of his single malt, said, “I assume that is in reference to Garvey?”
“At the moment especially him,” Washington said. He then looked at O’Hara and added, “Off the record for now, Mickey?”
“Of course,” O’Hara said. “Who is Garvey?”
Washington glanced around the immediate area. No other customer was in earshot. Craig the bartender had gone down to the opposite end of the bar and, using a white dish towel, was pulling glasses from the washer, methodically polishing them, then putting them on the bar shelves behind him.
“Garvey is married to Commissioner Gallagher’s granddaugher,” Washington said.
“Okay. And?” O’Hara said, as Washington took another sip of martini.
“And,” Payne put in, “he just got busted this afternoon smuggling two keys of coke at PHL.”
O’Hara’s bushy red eyebrows went up.
Washington, nodding, picked it back up. “They were doing a routine sweep of bags coming off the plane from Saint Thomas, where Garvey had been on business.” He glanced at Byrth and added, “Because the Texas Rangers are doing such an effective job at our border with Mexico, there is a surge of drugs coming up via the Caribbean.”
“Newsflash,” O’Hara said. “There’s a history of that with Phillyricans.”
Byrth looked at him. “Is that like a Texican?”
“Yeah, Philadelphia has a Hispanic population of about a quarter-million,” O’Hara explained, “seventy percent of which are Puerto Rican—Phillyricans. It’s second only to New York City’s number of Nuyoricans. That generates a lot of traffic between here and San Juan.”
Byrth, nodding, said, “And trafficking.”
“And,” Payne put in, “now apparently it’s the same with the USVI.”
“So that’s what happened with this Garvey?” O’Hara said.
Washington went on: “As the bags were put one by one from the cart onto the conveyor belt, a chocolate Lab alerted on his suitcase. One of our blue shirts stopped him as he started to leave the building with it. Garvey’s wife—Commissioner Gallagher’s daughter’s daughter—had gone to surprise him by picking him up. She witnessed him being escorted to a secure area near baggage claim.”
“Guess who surprised whom,” O’Hara said, shook his head, then added, “Another family ruined by being greedy. That’s a lot of money.”
“And that’s the problem,” Washington said. “It wasn’t about Garvey’s greed or needing money. That’s what came out in the interview. He admitted to the coke being in the bag. He said that he was transporting the drugs under duress.”
“‘So said the kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar,’” Payne said.
“In most any other case I would agree with you, Matthew.”
“But?”
“Garvey said he was told that if he refused, the cartel would kill his family,” Washington said. “Now, it is possible that he was made to think the cartel is involved. The resulting fear would be the same. He is, after all, Commissioner Gallagher’s granddaughter’s husband, and not cut from the same cloth. And if one is naïve—such as someone like Garvey, who does not have a record, not so much as a speeding ticket—one can be made to believe something they otherwise would not.” He paused to let that sink in, then added: “Particularly when one is shown photographs of the wife and young son—and, to make the point, the photograph of a boy’s body floating in a river.”
“Jesus!” Payne blurted, and suddenly thought of Amanda and her being with child. “Talk about a motivator.”
“How did he say they got to him?” Byrth said.
“A guy who became friendly with him at a local tavern,” Washington said. “Garvey said the guy claims to be an itinerant charter sailboat captain, and befriended him not long after he started going there six months ago. Looking back, Garvey now can see how he was duped, the guy seemingly making small talk over weeks while slowly mining him for information. It would appear that that information was sent to a connection here, who then shadowed the family and photographed them.”
“When did he get the threat about his family?” Payne said.
“Saturday. He was winding up work, ready to come home. The guy ‘happened’ to run into him and insisted on buying him a going-away beer. Then he handed him an envelope with recent photographs of the wife and son at home, at school, even at church. The guy made it clear that the cartel would kill the family if Garvey did not do as told. He claimed that he also was forced under the cartel’s control, but that might well be a ruse to make the cartel angle sound credible.”
Washington took a large sip of his Irish whisky martini, then added, “Everything in his statement is of course being investigated. But I have interviewed my share of professional liars, the extraordinary con artists, and Garvey is not one. He was telling the truth. It was quite difficult to watch, and then he completely broke down.”
Everyone was quiet for a long moment.
The Texas Ranger broke the silence.
“The poor bastard is fucked,” Byrth said matter-of-factly.
“That would seem to be today’s vast understatement,” Payne said.
“There is as we speak,” Washington said, “an involved discussion with the District Attorney’s Office.”
“I’d suggest that the DA is the least of this Garvey’s worries with a cartel involved,” Byrth said. “I’d take my chances on jail. Because, unless one of those miracles from the ceiling of that cathedral occurs, the cartel is going to make good on whacking him. They do not like losing product.”
“He does fear the worst now,” Washington said. “Commissioner Gallagher just moved his grandddaughter and great-grandson to his home, where there now is a squad car detailed round the clock.”
“It is absolutely repulsive how little they value human life,” O’Hara said. “It’s incomprehensible. To kill them over a lousy two keys? Compared to all the tons they move?”
“You would think so, Mickey,” Byrth said. “As I told Matt and Jason, snagging two keys is a slow day on the border. It’s usually one helluva lot larger. The record is six thousand kilos. One day, one bust. Wholesale, that’s three hundred grand.”
“I can only imagine their reaction to losing that much,” O’Hara said.
“That’s when they really start cutting off heads and stacking the bodies like cordwood,” Byrth said. “It’s not lost on those running the drugs. They are coached to do anything—and will do absolutely anything—necessary not to lose a load.” He grunted, then said, “Splash.”
“Splash?” Payne said.
“Yeah. We’re constantly surveilling the Rio Grande, hunting the mules before they cross. It’s not a helluva lot different than hunting deer—you know their patterns and there’s so damn many of them—except the cartel bastards shoot back. Since we know where they’re liable to cross, or we get a tip from an informant, we generally can find them in the staging process. Sometimes the tip is disinformation to draw us to a certain crossing point, then they make a big deal about loading the boats, and at the last minute act spooked and turn around. It’s all a diversion. The big run is taking place up- or downstream. During one this summer, I was up in our helo with a Bushmaster, flying as the shooter—”
“Our Aviation Unit shooters like to say High Altitude Sniper Intervention,” Payne said.
“Same thing,” Byrth said, nodding, “but we also wind up doing a lot of treetop flying. Anyway, we had Rangers in the brush of the riverbank watching the bad guys on the Mexico side—maybe a hundred yards away—loading bundles of keys aboard a couple of twelve-foot inflatables with outboards. We cannot do anything until they’re on our side, so we let them transfer the bundles to the waiting pickup or van, then either bust the load just down the road or follow it to the delivery. This time we were told to take them sooner rather than later.”
He took a sip of his bourbon, then went on: “Once the pickup was loaded, it took the dirt road to the highway. We were up in the bird and caught up to the pickup just as an unmarked DPS unit moved into place ahead of the truck and a marked DPS Tahoe pulled in behind and lit him up. The minute the pickup driver saw the lights, he pulled a hard left, cutting across the grass median, then started hauling ass back in the other direction.
“We were pacing him with the helo. I was in the open door with my Bushmaster and could see his every move. He knew he was close to getting caught—he frantically kept glancing up at us and in his mirrors—while yelling into his two-way radio and cutting in and out of traffic. He caused two wrecks before making it back to the dirt road leading to the river. Now that he was away from the populated areas, I got the go-ahead to take out his tires. The Bushmaster’s chambered in that heavy 6.8mm SPC. I popped the left tires with a couple three-round bursts, but he just kept running. Ahead we could see the river and the two inflatables waiting just their side of the middle.”
“They were going to come back and unload the truck?” Payne said.
Byrth shook his head. “They wouldn’t need to. The pickup raced to a part of the riverbank that was five feet above the water—and sped up, launching into the air.”
“Splash,” O’Hara said, shaking his head.
“Splash,” Byrth confirmed.
“And then it sank?” Payne said.
“After a few minutes. Meantime the inflatables moved in, the mule climbed out of the truck window, bloodied but okay, and they loaded him aboard. Then, as the pickup sank, the bundles started floating, and they grabbed them and motored back to grand ol’ Meh-hee-ko.”
“To wait and try again,” Payne said.
“And again and again. We have to hire a giant wrecker to come and recover all the vehicles. There’s no end to it.”
“Remarkable,” O’Hara said, then after a moment added, “Which just inspired me.”
He reached down to his feet and brought up his briefcase. He pulled out a small laptop and put it on the bar. After opening it, his fingers flew across the keyboard.
A couple of minutes later, he held out the computer to Washington.
“I am honoring our agreement that it’s off the record, Jason,” Mickey said. “But when you say that changes, this might help.”
Jason’s eyes went to the screen:
HOT HOT HOT – Proofread for typos only then IMMEDIATELY POST to website!!! –O’Hara
Breaking News . . . Posted [[ insert time stamp ]]
Dog Stops Mule
Bust by Airport Police Nets a Million Dollars in Cocaine Hidden in Drug-Runner’s Luggage
A Philadelphia man returning today from a business trip in the Caribbean was arrested at Philadelphia International Airport after two kilograms of cocaine were found hidden in his luggage. The flight originated in Saint Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Calling the bust unsurprising, a police spokesman explained that baggage is constantly monitored at multiple levels for various types of contraband, from explosives to illegal drugs.
In this instance, the detection device was the nose of Molly, a two-year-old chocolate brown Labrador retriever. On a routine check of bags, Molly alerted on the suitcase containing the bricks of 100 percent pure cocaine powder estimated to have a street value of around one million dollars.
“In the last year Molly has sniffed out more than a thousand keys of marijuana, cocaine, and heroin. She has never had a false-positive,” the police spokesman said, referring to when a dog mistakenly indicates a suitcase as carrying illegal drugs or other contraband.
“The mule trying to smuggle the cocaine didn’t have a chance with this dog on the job,” the police spokesman added.
Police have not released the name of the man arrested. He now faces felony charges for possession with intent to distribute, which carries a mandatory four-year sentence.
More details to come.
—Michael J. O’Hara
Washington looked back at O’Hara.
“Good idea, Mickey. Do it, please.”
“What?” Payne said.
O’Hara turned the computer so Payne and Byrth could read it.
“It’s worth the chance,” Byrth then said. “Getting it in the news could help get Garvey off the hook with the bad guys. Whoever they are.”
“Then he’s back to dealing with going to jail,” Payne said. “I wonder how many innocent mules wind up serving time.”
“Or get whacked,” Washington put in.
Matt’s cell phone rang as Mickey, having quickly sent the drug bust article to be posted, was putting up his laptop computer.
When Matt saw the caller ID, he said, “Perfect,” then answered the phone with, “Hold that thought, Kerry. I need you to drop everything and punch up Philly News Now. Go to Breaking News, then ‘leak’ to every other news outlet in town the article on the drug bust that Mickey just posted there. Anyone asks why he got the scoop, blame me. Say I called them but their number was busy.”
“Matt—”
“Got it?”
“Got it, Matt. But—”
“But what, damn it?”
“We just got a couple units responding to a nine-one-one shots-fired call, on the scene at Mary’s House. Came in hours after Special Operations pulled their unmarked. Tony Harris is en route.”
“What scene? A homicide?”
Matt saw that that question caused eyes to turn to him.
“Almost. Two guys on a motorcycle shot up the place pretty good trying to take out one of the girl residents. Left a trail of nine-millimeter casings.”
“Anyone hurt?”
“Not this time,” Kerry said.
“What does that mean?”
“The shooters left a message—here, I’ll read it.”
After Kerry finished, Matt said, “What the hell? I’m guessing no word from Maggie?”
Eyes turned to him again.
“No. And there’s only thirty minutes until the hour is up. They have six girls unaccounted for. And the woman who is Maggie’s assistant, and witnessed the shooters on the motorcycle, sent an e-mail to Maggie and called her cell phone. It’s all she knows to do.”
Matt pulled the pen from his pocket, then stole Washington’s cocktail napkin. “Give me that phone number again.”
Kerry did, and added, “We are running it down. But dollars to doughnuts it comes up a go-phone dead end.”
Matt stared at the number. “Kerry, get word out right now that nobody calls or otherwise communicates with the number without my permission or Lieutenant Washington’s. Give whoever is in charge of the scene my number and instructions to call. And shoot me a copy of that note, please.”
“Done, Marshal. Last one first.”
Matt felt his phone vibrate.
The guy is good.
“And don’t forget to feed the drug bust article to the media, Kerry. Keep me posted.”
Matt broke off the call and went to pull up the image of the note left at Mary’s House. He found Rapier’s e-mail at the top of his in-box, right above an e-mail from Will McCain that was a forwarded e-mail of the one below it—Maggie’s reply to Matt.
“Shit!” he blurted. “How did I miss this?”
“What, Matthew?”
“Maggie answered my e-mail,” he said, as he opened her reply.
Matt saw that it had been sent almost a half hour earlier. He scanned through it, made a face as he shook his head in frustration, then opened the image she had attached.
“Huh,” he said. “Well, she appears to be okay. But she really is starting to piss me off with this control issue of hers.”
He forwarded it to Amanda—Maybe it will ease her mind, he thought—then he went to Kerry’s e-mail and opened the image of the greasy handwritten note.
He handed Jason the phone and said, “You were right. Again. They are connected. Looks like Maggie may be the last witness. But witness to what? To what was stolen? At least we have some idea as to motive.” He took a sip of his drink, lost in thought, then said, “But it doesn’t track that the same person who would professionally take out the Gonzalez girl with .22 rounds behind the ear would attempt pulling off a third-world assassination stunt with a motorcycle and a spray and pray of nine-millimeter.”
“And do not forget the note in the pizza box,” Washington said dryly, nodding as he looked at it all.
Then he passed Matt’s phone to Byrth, who then gave it to O’Hara.
“Congratulations, Michael,” Jason said, gesturing at the image that Maggie McCain sent as her proof of life. “You’re now part of the story the breaking details of which you have to sit on.”
O’Hara nodded thoughtfully as he handed the phone back to Payne.
Washington then said: “We need details back on both Mary’s House and the West Philadelphia Sanctuary.”
At the thought of another attack, Matt felt his temper flaring, and forced it back.
“That Sanctuary has at least twice as many residents as Mary’s,” he said, his tone frustrated. “It is going to be a helluva lot harder to secure—if we can find enough blue shirts available for however long it will take.”
He then rapidly replied to Maggie’s e-mail: “I have seen the note about blood on your hands. Who is this guy? He will kill again. You may be safe now, but that can change. And your girls are at grave risk. I need your help, Maggie. Call my cell phone now.”
He hit SEND and then looked at Washington.
“I just told Maggie we have the note and to call me.” He picked up the cocktail napkin. “This number really is our only good lead now. But if we contact it, we could make things worse for her.”
“Agreed, Matthew,” he said, watching him shred the napkin, the pieces floating to the bar. “Stating the obvious, this is a desperate act on the miscreant’s part to get to her. And he has the advantage of using violence to draw her out.”
Payne glanced at his wristwatch.
“While we know he is capable of it,” Matt said, “we don’t know if he will act on his threat after this first hour, or the second, or whenever. We also don’t know if Maggie is even aware of the note, of its threat. And if she is, if she has called the number.”
He then met Washington’s eyes. “What am I missing, Jason?”
Washington raised his eyebrows.
“The rules have changed, Matthew.”
“How do you mean?”
“Maggie, with her need for control, created an impasse for everyone looking for her. What she did not—perhaps being in fear for her life could not—anticipate was that her stall tactic would force the miscreant to act again.”
“Which, as Matt notes, could happen in a minute, a day, a week,” Byrth said.
Matt looked at him, then Mickey, then Jason.
Then he checked his e-mail.
“No reply from Maggie. Fuck it. I’m calling the number.”