Pearce was in the second vehicle in a convoy of three. There were four men in the lead car and three more in the trailing SUV. Pearce was travelling with Deni, Rasul and Tarek, who was driving them through the treacherous storm. The wipers were working furiously, but they did little to mitigate the effects of the downpour. The road ahead was a glittering starfield of red and white lights, all inching along in the slow traffic. Heavy clouds had brought night early to Seattle, and the streets were devoid of pedestrians. The rain was too heavy and the winds too strong for all but the foolhardiest.
Rasul had briefed Pearce on Ben Cresci, the head of a massive narcotics business, who used a food distribution front to smuggle product throughout the West Coast and Midwest. Deni and Cresci had been in business for six years, ever since the Chechen had established a connection to Afghanistan. Deni couldn’t give an accurate estimate of the number of people Cresci supplied, but guessed it was hundreds of thousands. Rasul said Cresci moved enough product to supply the population of a large city. He could be selling to millions throughout his territory. The Cresci operation was the perfect way for the Red Wolves to distribute their toxin.
The journey from Laurelhurst to Roosevelt took over an hour. Their destination wasn’t more than four miles away, but the storm had caused mayhem. There couldn’t have been many gyms in the world that had bouncers, but when the convoy stopped outside the three-storey building on 65th Street, Pearce saw this was one of them. Four men in black satin bomber jackets huddled under an awning that proudly announced this was Roosevelt Boxing, the home of Seattle’s own welterweight champion, Bobby Ivan. Tarek stopped the car directly opposite the entrance, and Pearce saw the bouncers fan out a little. The two closest the door reached inside their jackets.
‘Cresci’s kid is a contender,’ Rasul explained. ‘His dad comes here almost every night to watch him train.’
Deni and Rasul stepped into the rain, and Pearce followed them. Three men from the lead and two from the trailing vehicle stepped onto the sidewalk and eyed the bouncers menacingly. Deni and Rasul hurried forward and as they reached the awning, two of the bouncers stopped them and patted them down. Pearce was thoroughly frisked by a third. They took Deni’s gun and a pistol and knife from Rasul. Pearce had nothing but his Ghostlink.
‘You two are OK,’ the nearest bouncer said. ‘But him we don’t know.’
All eyes fell on Pearce.
‘Your boss is going to want to hear what I’ve got to say,’ he replied. ‘Even they don’t know the whole story.’
One of the bouncers stepped away and spoke into a lapel mic, and Deni watched Pearce suspiciously as they waited beneath the awning. The bouncer returned and nodded.
‘You can go up,’ he said.
One of the men held the door open and as they went inside Pearce noticed it was three inches thick and reinforced with steel. These people were ready for serious trouble.
‘What don’t we know?’ Deni asked as they climbed the stairs. Pearce didn’t answer, and the Chechen grabbed him and pinned him to the wall. ‘I told you what would happen. One move. Just one move.’
Pearce held the man’s gaze. ‘We can waste time here, or we can go inside and you can find out exactly what I know.’ There was no way he was risking being locked out of the room by sharing the secret too soon.
‘Dad?’ Rasul asked. ‘What the hell’s going on?’
Deni didn’t reply, but he released Pearce and led them up the stairs to a reception area. The guy behind the counter had the lean, hard look of an ex-military man, and he gestured at a set of double doors, which he unlocked with a remote control. Pearce pulled one of the doors open and stepped inside a huge, state-of-the-art boxing gym.
Strong, fit, ambitious men trained in a free-weights area. Others worked maize balls and heavy punchbags. Some did rope or pad work, and half a dozen were sparring in three full-sized rings in the heart of the space. The gym was alive with the sounds of exertion, and beneath the grunts and cries was an up-tempo dance track. Freshly laundered towels were piled next to a water cooler, and beside them was a stack of coronavirus tests, ubiquitous in any public setting since the pandemic.
Pearce didn’t need Cresci pointed out to him. A trim man in his early forties, Cresci wore a light suit with wide lapels. He had a ponytail, a thick moustache and large tinted sunglasses that made him look like a throwback to the seventies. He sat in one of two worn armchairs on a raised platform beside the centre ring. The platform was surrounded by six men in tailored suits, whose shark-like eyes swept the room in every direction. One of the men noticed Deni, hurried up to Cresci and whispered in his ear. Cresci gave an unmistakeable look of irritation when he glanced in their direction.
‘Keep your gloves up!’ he yelled at a young guy in the ring.
Pearce assumed the kid was Cresci’s son. He had the same eyes, but was even leaner than his father. From the brief exchange he saw, Pearce could tell Cresci junior was light on his feet and could throw a solid punch. He looked as though he was making his opponent suffer.
Cresci walked down a run of steps and came over. ‘You clean?’ he asked before he got too close.
Deni nodded. ‘Tested yesterday,’ he replied.
Cresci looked at Pearce and Rasul, who both nodded.
‘I’m sorry to hear about your troubles,’ he said, drawing near. ‘These things are bad for business.’
‘Thank you, Ben,’ Deni replied. ‘We need to talk. It seems we’ve all been made fools of.’
Cresci studied Deni for a moment. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I can give you five.’