Snell slurped the last of her cherry Jell-O and set the spoon on the tray. “No way in hell Murphy will go for it. He wants Keats’s head on a plate as much as I do.”
Jake gripped the side rails of the bed. “That’s why you’re going to sell the idea to him.”
The pink hue in her cheeks turned crimson. “I’m going to do what? Are you out of your mind?”
“Victoria, think about it. Keats is our only link to Sokolov. We have nothing else to go on to find this guy and the kid. Maybe Trajor and MedFire are going to be able to find and close the holes in their program to stop his plan, maybe not. But we won’t know for sure until we have him in hand.”
She tapped her fingers on the bedrail while she thought about it. “Even if I could sell it to Murphy, there’s no way Keats would go for it.”
“He would if he thinks we have his ass in a sling,” Bear said. “The FBI has some evidence tying Keats to Sokolov and this plot, but it’s thinner than my twenty-year-old underwear. Nothing that would stand in court.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You want to sell him we have more dirt on him than we do?”
Jake nodded. “And sell him Sokolov’s plot is dead, and Keats now has nothing to gain financially. Plus, Keats has a soft spot for kids. The fact that Sokolov kidnapped a kid will help push him.”
Her lips disappeared in a line as she dropped her head back on the pillow. “Damn it. As much as I hate it, it’s a good plan. If the slippery bastard is going to get away yet again, we might as well get something out of him.”
“It’s gotta be your idea,” Jake said. “Since Murphy wouldn’t mind busting his boot off in my ass, it’d be better coming from you.”
Her features clouded. “I wish I was out there with you guys.”
Jake bent and kissed her forehead. “We do too, lady.”
The corner of her mouth ticked up. “Well, give me my phone so I can call Murphy.” Jake passed it and she punched in the number. As it rang, she cocked an eyebrow at Jake. “Am I ever going to get to put Keats in handcuffs?”
It took Snell ten minutes to move past Murphy’s initial resistance and another ten to convince him to agree to the deal contingent on any leads they found at the Wolf’s accomplice’s house in Omaha. The Omaha field office was geared up for the raid, waiting on a judge to sign off on the search warrant. Foster told Jake and Bear they could come back to the office and watch the raid from there if they wanted.
By the time they returned to the FBI offices, the crew gathered in the war room, huddled around a thirty-two-inch flat screen Lumsden hooked to the computer. Foster informed Jake and Bear they missed it. The screen showed the outside of the house, a respectable two-story colonial with a neat, manicured lawn with a half-dozen FBI agents trampling the grass.
“Nobody home,” Foster said. “Guys are going through the house now.”
“Anything with Trajor or MedFire on the Blackbird program?”
“Whatever they did, they covered it well. The execs claim it’s bullshit, that there never was any kind of program.”
Jake pumped his shoulders. “Hell, they can claim it all they want, but that doesn’t explain the dead bodies in the hospitals.”
“I sure would like to know for sure, though, wouldn’t you?” Foster asked.
A handsome young agent with blond hair, razor-parted at the side, flashed on the screen. Foster introduced them to Special Agent Mason Stadler.
“Guys are still searching,” Stadler said, “but we haven’t found much of interest. There was a cutout behind an electrical panel in the basement with a Walther PPK and some wigs, but nothing else. A few wedding pictures in the living room matched the photos of Sam Stone and Vanessa Daniels.”
“Computers?” Foster asked.
“One desktop. Our best guy’s digging into it, but nothing yet. Doesn’t look promising.”
“Nothing on Sokolov or Stone?” Murphy asked.
“Nada,” Stadler said. “I’ll keep you posted if we find anything.”
The screen went blank, and heaviness settled in the room, like someone doubled gravity. The war room worker bees wandered back to their respective stations like zombies, scouring papers and computer files they must have already combed dozens of times.
Murphy scanned the room, his old shoulders sagging, the heavy lines on either side of his chin making him look like a ventriloquist dummy. His owl-eyed gaze settled on Jake and Bear. “All right, boys. What’s your plan?”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
The Wolf got the call a hair before ten o’clock from one of Keats’s guys to come to the warehouse. The guy on the inside was a mid-level goon named Calderone who provided the Wolf with information about Keats in exchange for a modest monthly stipend from the United States government’s discretionary funds. The FBI wanted Keats as bad as a salivating dog wanted steak. The CIA was more interested in the mob boss’s ties to the Russian mafia than the mob boss himself.
“Tell me why I need to be there?” the Wolf asked.
Calderone’s voice was as raspy as a three-pack-a-day smoker. “Keats said the name Sokolov to one of his bodyguards. Ain’t that the guy you was looking for?”
“He said Sokolov is coming to the warehouse?”
“Somebody’s coming. Don’t know if it’s him or somebody else, but he said the name Sokolov, and we were told to lock down the warehouse.”
The CIA knew Keats had ties to the Russian mafia, mostly through drug and gunrunning. Andre Fisher confirmed this through a mouthful of blood following a heavy beating in the Nebraska hotel room. Fisher claimed he knew nothing about Sokolov other than the fact he bought guns, even after the Wolf and Mariya broke four of his fingers one at a time. But, given the circles in which Keats ran, it was highly possible the two were connected.
“There a door you could let me in?” the Wolf asked.
“It’s gonna cost ya. There’s cameras all over the warehouse floor, so come to the back door at the northeast corner.”
“I’ll be there in twenty.”
The Wolf parked a block away on Oak Street near the Chinatown Food Market and stole along the darkened street to the back of the warehouse, his head on a swivel for any potential tailers. He stood at the metal door with its flaking red paint and lightly rapped twice. A deadbolt snapped back and Calderone opened the door. He said nothing as the Wolf entered, just took the envelope the Wolf held out, pointed toward a faint light down the hallway, and lumbered the opposite way up a staircase and out of sight.
The Wolf snuck through the darkness toward the light. The end of the hallway spilled out to the backside of the warehouse. From his vantage point, he could see the main floor, including the entrance approximately two hundred feet away. A rifle would have been handy from this distance. He’d have to move closer if Sokolov came through the front door, but given Calderone’s warning about the cameras, he didn’t risk showing his face in the light until he absolutely had to.
Almost thirty minutes passed when a screech from the front door echoed through the nearly empty warehouse. The Wolf peeked around the corner and caught his breath when he saw Jake and Bear stroll through. What the hell were they doing here? His grip tightened on his gun as he watched and waited.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
“Why’d you bring the overgrown Boy Scout?” Keats asked, perched behind a mahogany desk. The dim ambiance smelled of stale cigar smoke. Jake resumed his usual position in a chair in front of the desk, wishing Keats would open a window. Bear waited under strenuous protest outside the closed door at the bottom of the stairs leading to the warehouse office with two of Keats’s goons gawking at him.
“Because Bear and I are partners,” Jake said. “You can trust him.”
Keats laughed, the overhead lights glinting off his silver mane. “He hates my guts. I wouldn’t trust him any farther than I could throw his giant ass.”
Jake pumped his shoulders. “Then trust me.”
The smile melted off Keats’s lined face. “I’m finding i
t harder and harder to as time marches on. What do you want? Here to talk about the noose around my neck again?”
“What if I told you I could make the FBI noose go away utterly and completely?”
Keats took a sip of coffee from a steaming cup on his desk, his hawkish eyes burning a hole through Jake. “I’d say you’re full of shit.”
“Sometimes, but not today.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s the deal?”
“Easy. I want one thing. You deliver and the FBI wipes your file. You’re free and clear for any past offenses.”
Keats’s face contorted with agitation. “Sokolov? Forget it.”
Jake jumped to his feet and laid his palms on the desk. “You bring Sokolov here, and I’ll do the rest. It’s that easy.”
“Nothing is that easy,” Keats sneered, thumping a fist hard enough on the desk to splash his coffee. “One, I don’t know where he is, and two, the FBI wouldn’t cross the street to piss on me if I was engulfed in flames. Their office has wanted my ass in a sling for more than a decade, and if you think they’re going to wipe their drives clean of me, you’re dumber than I thought you were.”
Jake didn’t think it would be easy convincing Keats to play along. In fact, he told Bear on the way to the warehouse the betting odds would be greater than fifty-fifty that Keats would tell Jake to take a hike. The only way Keats would bite is if he thought he was safe from both the FBI and Sokolov.
Jake dropped back into the chair. “Listen, Jason. Murphy would cut my nut sack off if he knew I told you this, but I’m gonna level with you. The FBI doesn’t have anything substantial on you with Sokolov.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
Jake flashed his index finger. “They don’t have anything that can stick, I should say. But, there’s enough circumstantial evidence to make you very miserable for a long time. Maybe enough for maybe a grand jury investigation.”
Keats snorted. “Bring it. I’ve been through it before.”
“And how long did it take you to recover? The money stops flowing in because your clientele is running scared until you’re in the clear. Guns and booze are profitable if there’s people willing to supply you with them and buy them from you. Maybe this time, your customers don’t come back.”
“That’s a lot of maybes.”
“It is, but by the time the FBI stretches this out,” Jake said, “your little empire will be melted by a hot wave of legal fees. They will come after you with a vengeance, knowing they don’t have shit to nail you with, but hoping and praying they find something during the fight. And, who knows, maybe they will. You want to take the chance?”
Keats ran his hands through his hair, stood, and opened the blinds, revealing the Missouri River flowing behind his warehouse. For the first time since he entered, a glimmer of hope stirred in Jake’s gut.
“Listen, Sokolov kidnapped a six-year-old boy after he shot his mother in the head in front of him. If nothing else, you can save this kid’s life.”
“Sokolov would kill me,” Keats said.
“Not if we get to him first.”
Keats unleashed a slow, disbelieving look. “Jesus, Caldwell. You think the guy would go quietly into the night? The FBI might not have anything on me, but I guarantee that son of a bitch does. If he doesn’t have me gutted like a fish, he’ll make damn sure he doesn’t go down alone. You ever heard the story of the Donkey, the Fox, and the Lion?”
“I don’t think so.”
Keats abandoned the coffee and went to his wet bar, grabbed a decanter of Scotch and brought it back to his desk, pouring a drink as he talked. “There’s a donkey and a fox and they formed a partnership. One day, they’re traveling down the road looking for food when they come upon a lion and become terrified. The fox sees an opportunity to save his own skin, so he walks to the lion and says he’ll save the lion the trouble of tracking the very fast donkey if the lion agrees to let the fox go free. The lion says that’s fair, and the fox tricks the donkey into falling into a pit, trapping him there. The lion, seeing the donkey was caught and couldn’t get away, ate the fox right then and there and ate the donkey at his leisure.”
“What’s your point?”
Keats took a sip. “One of Aesop’s fables. The point is you’re the donkey and I’m the fox. Our friend Sokolov is the lion.”
“Then don’t trap me in a hole. This guy has to go down, and we have to do it before he kills thousands. If he executes the Blackbird and the kid dies, I don’t care how circumstantial the evidence is, you’re going to burn.”
Keats threw the rest of the Scotch to the back of his throat, grimacing as he swallowed. He stared at Jake for a good minute, mulling the options. “Goddamn it. If I do this, I want assurances.”
Assurances? Jake didn’t like the word, or the way Keats said it. “What kind of assurances?”
“Sokolov is too dangerous to me alive. If I deliver him, you promise me…no you swear to me, on the life of your pretty little bride-to-be, if you get the chance, you take his ass out.”
Jake drew back in the chair. “I can’t make that promise.”
“You would do it in a heartbeat if you knew half the shit this psycho has done. By taking him out, you save lives and make the world a better place. Promise me.”
Jake had killed before, men who did far less than Sokolov. Far less than what he planned to do. And while he wouldn’t promise anything on Maggie’s head, he knew Sokolov wouldn’t go down without a fight.
“You take Maggie out of the deal,” Jake said, “and I promise to do what needs to be done when the opportunity presents itself.”
Keats reached a hand across the desk. Jake stood and shook it, hopefully for the last time. Keats pulled out his cell. “And besides the clean slate, what do I get out of this?”
Jake reached across the desk and poured a finger of Keats’s expensive Scotch into the glass. He picked it up and swirled it. “There was a wolf eating an animal and got a bone stuck in his throat. It was really painful so he ran around promising a great reward if any of the other animals could get the bone out. At last, the crane with her long beak promised to try. So, the wolf opened his mouth, and the crane stuck her head inside, working her long beak until she got the bone out. When she asked about the reward, the wolf replied, ‘you just stuck your head in a wolf’s mouth and didn’t get it bitten off. Be satisfied with that.’ Another Aesop fable.” Jake swallowed the Scotch, set the glass on the desk. He hated the taste, but the effect was worth it. “Make the call.”
Keats bared his gums. “Well played, Jake. You never fail to impress.”
Chapter Sixty
Sokolov eyed Keats’s warehouse from two blocks away, scanning the surroundings for signs of anything out of the ordinary. He drummed his fingers along the steering wheel with memories of a smiling Marta mixed with macabre visions of dead Americans in their hospital beds and the Wolf splayed open in front of him like a skinned deer.
Sokolov’s head told him to run, that nothing good could come of this meeting. But his heart told him to finish the job, and he couldn’t finish the job without a programmer who could override the security features of MedFire’s network and keep the communication ports open. If he didn’t finish the job and release the Blackbird virus, the right wing of the party who sent him on this mission would kill him anyway. Even with the right programmer, doubt crept into his mind as to whether they could pull this thing off.
His mind drifted to the boy and what to do with him. Sokolov always had a soft spot for children, and he half thought to leave the kid chained to the bed at Androv’s place. Given the fact Androv was being interrogated by the FBI, it was only a matter of time before the feds searched his place. They’d find the kid and stick him somewhere safe. Then, images flashed of a fire breaking out and the boy screaming as he strained against his chains, and Sokolov knew leaving him there was out of the question. Plus, Androv wanted the kid dead, and if the FBI let him go, there was no telling what he’d do to the boy
. Seeing no other options, Sokolov had unchained the kid and put him somewhere safe until this ordeal was over, one way or another.
After observing the warehouse for a good twenty minutes, Sokolov was relatively satisfied it was safe to respond to Keats’s invitation and enter the warehouse. He slid the car into gear and rolled down the hill toward the building. Cruising the parking lot slowly, he circled the building before parking nose out. With an exaggerated breath, he opened the door and headed toward the entrance.
Chapter Sixty-One
Keats had made the call to Sokolov, and he agreed to come to the warehouse with the payment for another programmer. Jake called Foster. He put Murphy on the phone, and a heated argument erupted over the plethora of FBI agents Murphy wanted staged inside the warehouse to take out Sokolov.
“This guy is smart,” Jake told Murphy. “He even smells you and he’s gone.”
“This isn’t your show, Caldwell,” Murphy spat. “We can’t risk losing this guy.”
“Bear and I can handle him. Work with Foster, stage yourselves nearby, but nowhere visible, and be ready to descend on the area. You know how to seal off the exit routes. Once he’s inside the warehouse, you can do all the closing in you want. Just remember Bear and I are already in here. Don’t shoot our asses off.”
Jake shoved his cell in his pocket and clicked across the warehouse floor to Bear who peered out one of the open dock doors.
“When is Sokolov coming?” Bear asked.
“Keats said soon, maybe thirty minutes. What’s our plan of attack?”
Bear turned to the interior of the warehouse. He examined the near empty bays of blue and orange racking anchored beneath opaque skylights set in the forty-foot ceiling with humming overhead fixtures spaced in between them. Two empty shipping containers, like those found on the back of a semi, rested on the pitted concrete floor near a back-door exit. Three large rollup dock doors lay open on the south side of the warehouse, empty wood crates stacked in front of them.
Jake Caldwell Thrillers Page 75