Blindside (Michael Bennett)

by James Patterson

  It was the FBI’s finest: Bill Fiore.

  CHAPTER 71

  ALL EYES WERE on the FBI agent. Fiore looked focused as he stepped all the way into the room. He took a position near a concrete support column close to the door. He showed good tactical sense.

  Everyone stood perfectly still. Including me. They just stared at the portly FBI agent with his Glock 9mm held out in front of him. Just as I was thinking, Don’t say something like “Freeze” or “You’re all under arrest,” Fiore opened his mouth.

  He said, “Nobody move.”

  Great. That should scare them into submission. I stepped backward until I was close to him. The heavy support column was a few steps to our left. I checked it out because something told me we might need it.

  Then the handsome Christoph, the one who’d started shooting in New York, pulled a pistol from behind his back. At almost the same time the “janitor,” Gunnar, did the same thing.

  Out of instinct, I yelled, “Gun.” It was the universal signal among police that there was real danger in real time.

  Fiore fired three times quickly before we both jumped to our left, behind the column. Before I did, I saw Gunnar go down. His pistol clattered on the hard, tiled floor. Blood quickly leaked into the grout and spread all around him. There was nothing neat or clean about a bullet wound.

  I had to ask Fiore, “How’d you find me?”

  “You gave me the address, you moron. You said it was across from Toit’s City.”

  The FBI agent was starting to impress me.

  Now shots echoed as Henry’s people fired on us. Fragments from the column burst into dust, clouding my vision. There was enough dust to make me cough. I still wasn’t going to move from my position.

  I crouched next to Fiore as he returned fire, and I drew my own pistol. I wanted a quick shot at Henry. It was the old theory that if you cut off the head of a snake, the rest of the snake is no threat.

  When I popped out from behind the support post, no one was on the catwalk. Henry and Natalie had disappeared.

  Fiore stopped firing for a moment. I ducked back behind the post. When he looked at me, he was astonished. “Where the hell did you get a gun?”

  I shrugged and said, “Just picked it up.”

  I heard him mumble something foul about the NYPD. Then he started to shoot again.

  I knocked down the guy with the teardrop tattoo. I hit him in the leg and then the pelvis. He flopped down onto the floor, screaming in Estonian. He ignored his gun and desperately tried to stem the bleeding next to his groin. I knew he was out of the fight.

  The sound of the gunfire boomed in the big room and shut down my hearing. We still had to deal with the main killers I had seen in action before. I didn’t know where they had dropped back to. I couldn’t get a bead on them.

  Then I heard Fiore grunt. I leaned back and saw blood pouring from a bullet hole in his shoulder. It also seeped between his fingers where he was holding the side of his abdomen.

  He started to pant. He was losing color.

  All I said was “How bad?”

  He turned and lifted his hand so I could see the wound. Even through his mangled shirt, I knew it was nothing to fool around with.

  “I have an idea.”

  Fiore said, “Is it better than your idea to come here alone?” “Only marginally.”

  “Better than nothing. Let’s hear it.”

  “I’m gonna lay down some heavy fire. And you scoot out the door.”

  Fiore said, “I’m not going to leave you here.”

  “You’re not going to do either of us a favor by bleeding out on the floor. Go get some help. And some immediate medical attention.”

  I could see him thinking about it.

  Then I said forcefully, “You need attention right now. On the count of three, you get out that door. And don’t forget to get me some help.”

  I counted quickly. “One, two, three.” Then I slid to the right of the post and emptied my magazine. I spread the fire around, trying to keep anyone with a goddamn gun in the room from raising his head.

  One bullet struck the metal handrail along the catwalk. It caused an impressive spark. The air was thick with dust and gunpowder. The slide on my pistol locked back. I was empty. I threw myself behind the support column.

  Now I needed time.

  CHAPTER 72

  AS I CROUCHED behind the post, I said a quick prayer for the FBI man to make it. The ploy had worked. Bill Fiore had slipped out the door while everyone’s heads were down. I couldn’t buy him any more time with the gun. But I didn’t need to surrender immediately, either.

  Sweat stung my eyes. Suddenly I realized I was dehydrated. And exhausted. Gunfights can do that to you.

  I called out, “Hang on, hang on. Can we talk about this?”

  I was surprised to hear Henry’s voice. He was apparently up in one of the offices around the catwalk. He shouted back, “Drop your gun and surrender. Then we can talk.”

  “How do I know you won’t kill me?”

  “Christoph and Ollie will definitely kill you if you don’t. Now both of you drop your guns.”

  I smiled at the idea that they thought the wounded FBI agent was still with me. I milked it for as much time as possible.

  Finally I said, “I don’t know what you mean by ‘both of us.’ I’m the only one here.”

  “Where’s your partner?”

  “I don’t have a partner. That was just a guy who’d been bothering me before.”

  I heard the slovenly Ollie call out from the other side of the room, “He’s telling the truth. He’s the only one behind the post.”

  I slid my empty gun across the floor. Then I stepped out from behind the post with my hands up. Gunnar was, of course, still there on the floor. A giant puddle of blood had spread out around him. His eyes stared straight ahead. I guess he’d had more to worry about than closing his eyes when he bled out.

  The other man I had shot in the leg was whimpering, still clutching his upper thigh. Real tears matched his tattooed teardrop. Strands of his dark hair hung across his face. His pants were soaked with blood, but he hadn’t lost a bucketful like poor Gunnar.

  The two killers from New York, the ones I now considered the professionals, rushed toward me with their guns up. Christoph showed some sense when he immediately put my hands behind my back and fastened them with something. It felt like rope, but then I realized it was a pair of disposable handcuffs. I’d seen them at police trade shows. They looked like shoelaces with a sturdy plastic bracket that locked the two thin cords in place. I tugged on my arm and was impressed at how well they worked.

  Ollie searched me carefully and kept my wallet, leaving behind the few euro coins I had in my trousers pocket.

  “I got twenty-eight euros in there.”

  He smiled. “If you need them, I’ll give them back to you.”

  “What if you’re not around?”

  Ollie chuckled. “Trust me, I’ll be close by until you really won’t need cash anymore.”

  That was a little disconcerting.

  Now my main hope was that Fiore could get help here immediately.

  Henry came down the stairs from the catwalk with Natalie right behind him. He walked quickly across the floor, shouting for men to starting sterilizing the place. He paused briefly to look down at the injured man with the teardrop tattoo. Then he spoke in Estonian to the remaining shooter, the other man who had crept up next to me when I first stepped into the room.

  The man shrugged, then shot his injured comrade in the face. Aside from a surprised gurgle just before the shot, there wasn’t time for the injured man to react. Now he lay flat on the floor, blood leaking from the hole between his eyes. The blue teardrop was still visible.

  Henry casually looked my way and said, “No witnesses, no links to me. You see? I really am smarter than any cop.”

  Christoph and Ollie pushed me forward as we all rushed out of the building. They shoved me into the back of a surprisingly c
lean Volkswagen Passat. It had a remnant odor of pot but was otherwise immaculate.

  Ollie turned around in the passenger seat and pointed a Smith & Wesson revolver at me. “Lie down on the floor and don’t sit up again. If you do, I’ll have to shoot you.”

  “If I don’t, does that mean you’ll just shoot me later?”

  “Is that something you want to test right now?”

  He was eloquent in his own way.

  CHAPTER 73

  THE RIDE IN the back of the Dutch killers’ Volkswagen had been short, probably less than ten minutes. I’d had a hard time calculating the speed with my face on the floor of the car. I believed Ollie when he said he’d shoot me. After years as a cop, you get a good sense for someone who’s full of shit. Ollie was not, even if his looks said otherwise. Stuck on the floor, with an utter lack of knowledge of Tallinn, Estonia, I was up shit creek. I had no idea where I was or why they had taken me instead of killing me on the spot. Perhaps I’d been spared just because Natalie would’ve been a witness to Henry ordering it. I might never know.

  I had gotten a quick glimpse of the street and the fairly nice stand-alone office building I was rushed into after they stopped the car and hauled me out. Then they’d shoved me down a flight of stairs to some kind of basement with an empty loading dock area at the back. The building had to be perched on a hill, then, the dock at the far end lower than the main entrance. I’d been lucky to stay upright on the hard, concrete steps with steel strips embedded along the edges. At the bottom of the stairs, they’d crammed me into a small room with stained cinder-block walls sweating tiny beads of water. It wasn’t that humid, but basements did weird things all over the world. Dead bug carcasses littered the bare concrete floor with a drain in the center of the room.

  It was dark and smelled of urine. Not the image I had of a cybercriminal’s hideout at all. Not even a decent super-villain lair. This sucked.

  I had tried to pick up some intel on the ride over, but the men had spoken to each other only in Dutch. I worried about Bill Fiore and his wounds. I hoped he was getting treatment right now. That would mean he’d also alerted the local police to my kidnapping. I wasn’t a hopeless case yet.

  Now I found myself in a room where the only light was a line along the bottom of the door, from a bulb at the base of the stairs next to it. I sat on a hard, wooden chair, like I was waiting to see the principal at a Catholic school. My hands were still secured by the cord handcuffs. And just like in a holding cell of a police station, there was a bolt in the wall with a ring on the end big enough to tie a rope through. That rope was attached to my handcuffs and kept me in place. I wasn’t impressed with Estonia’s restraint technology. I felt like I was in the Alabama of the Baltics. But I was secure. I had already tried to break free and only had sore wrists to show for it. Maybe I should watch my New Yorker’s natural tendency to make fun of Alabama.

  Several times I heard people on the stairs who then walked past my room and toward the loading dock. After about thirty minutes, someone came down the stairs and stopped, then turned toward my room. Finally I was going to have some human contact.

  Whoever it was, they hesitated outside the door. After another minute, a head popped into my room, allowing in some dim light. It was Natalie Lunden.

  She didn’t say anything. I think she was shocked by the sight of an American police officer held prisoner in her boyfriend’s office building.

  I managed to say, “Where are we?”

  She didn’t answer. Natalie stepped into the small room and kicked away dead bugs near her feet.

  “Are they going to torture me?”

  She shook her head and said, “Henry doesn’t do that kind of thing.”

  “Tell that to the guy Henry had shot in the head.”

  I could tell by the look on Natalie’s face she had already been thinking about that. She looked like she might be ill. That’s just what this little shithole of a room needed: vomit.

  Natalie said, “Henry acted rashly. He wasn’t thinking. He’s been under a lot of stress.” Everyone wanted to make excuses for criminals. Sometimes they were just assholes to the core.

  “You’re kidding yourself. You’re not some wide-eyed country girl, for Chrissakes. You went to MIT. Can’t you see Henry is bad news?”

  Natalie thought about it for a moment, then said, “I know what you think. But I’m here by choice. I wasn’t lying when I told you I bought my own ticket. It wasn’t my mom’s choice or my dad’s. I did it.”

  “But why? For that little twerp with a Napoleon complex? How many steroids does he take to look like that? He looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Cruise had a baby.”

  Her pretty face flushed. She swallowed and said, “He loves me. And I love him.”

  Then I understood. The one thing in the world that can screw up a good education, derail career plans, and generally mess with your head: love.

  CHAPTER 74

  OLLIE AND CHRISTOPH sat in an office on the ground floor of the new building. There were six offices on this floor and ten on the floor above them. Plus there was a loading dock and four storage rooms in the basement. It was dreary—that was the word Christoph thought of. No style or splash.

  Henry was expanding. And getting crazier.

  Ollie said, “I can’t believe Henry had Joseph shot. I think he was just trying to impress the American cop.”

  Christoph said, “No doubt Henry can show off, but in his defense, gunshot wounds are hard to explain at hospitals.” He had his doubts about their employer, but he didn’t want to fuel Ollie’s growing dissatisfaction.

  “But it’s like he thinks he’s some kind of god, ordering death sentences.”

  Christoph nodded. “He pays well and is making money. Don’t worry about it. He said we could have this office space for ourselves.” Christoph liked the idea of them having their own office. Henry had designated this room just for them. At the moment, there was only a table and two folding chairs in it, but they had already ordered two desks and a bookshelf.

  Ollie had a different take on it. He said, “Why on earth would we want an office? It’s just another way for Henry to keep track of us. Next thing you know, he’ll tell us to work regular hours. Do you want to get high at night and wake up at seven thirty the next morning for the rest of your life?” Ollie shuddered.

  The way Ollie put it, Christoph wasn’t nearly as excited. He did like the easy hours they could generally set on their own. He was too lazy to go to school—that’s why he had to make the most of his youth and lack of conscience. He didn’t think he could be doing this kind of work into his forties.

  Christoph said, “Doesn’t it make you feel more professional?” But looking at his partner, and his nasty black AC/DC T-shirt and long, greasy hair, he realized Ollie didn’t care anything about feeling professional.

  Ollie said, “There’s only one thing that makes me feel professional: getting paid. If we didn’t get paid for killing people, we’d just be psychopaths. I don’t care about offices or if the boss likes us. I just want to get paid for our work.”

  Christoph had told Ollie his plan to save enough money to buy an apartment for himself in Amsterdam and set up his mom in a nice house. He had about €130,000 saved. He needed more. A lot more. The idea of sharing a house with his mom was unattractive. Unless he talked her into still doing his laundry.

  Christoph said, “I don’t want to have to find new work. Henry keeps us busy. I need the steady income.”

  Ollie said, “Henry keeps us busy for now. The way he’s been acting, who knows how long this job will last. We need to get rid of this cop and start looking for a backup job.” He paused, thinking. “For the record, I don’t think it’s cool to kill an American cop. It could stir up all kinds of shit. I prefer it when we have to kill other criminals. No one cares much about that. We just need to be careful with this cop.”

  Christoph said, “How do you want to do Bennett?”

  Ollie pulled out of his pocket a Dutch
two-euro coin with an engraving of Queen Beatrix on it. “I’ll flip this coin. Heads you get to kill Bennett, tails I do.”

  Christoph nodded.

  Ollie caught the coin in midair, then opened his hand. It showed the head of Queen Beatrix.

  Ollie looked at him and said, “Gun or knife?”

  Christoph shrugged. “If we’re going to take him out near the port to kill him, I’ll try my hand with a knife. I’ve shot plenty of people. I’ve only stabbed one.”

  Ollie stared in disbelief, then said, “Who’d you stab?”

  “Just someone a long time ago, when I was a teenager.”

  “Really? I’ve never heard this story. I told you about shooting someone when I was seventeen over money, but now you’re all secrets and lies. You think you’re a spy or something?”

  Christoph thought about it. Ollie already knew everything about him. He had seen some terrible things. There was nothing Christoph could tell him that would get him in more trouble if Ollie ever went to the police.

  Christoph hesitated, then said, “I stabbed my cousin. We were fourteen. She’s still listed as a runaway.”

  Christoph saw what he thought was a look of admiration on Ollie’s face. It was the first time he’d ever told anyone about his cousin Elizabeth. His first-ever murder victim. She had called him a pervert when he tried to sneak a peek down her shirt. When she threatened to tell Christoph’s mother, he panicked. He didn’t know what else to do and stuck his new folding knife right into her throat.

  He even tried to help her afterward, but the blood just kept coming and coming. A few minutes later, she looked like she’d been left outside all winter. There was no color at all in her face. Her brown eyes just stared up at the sky.

  They were in a field about a mile from his parents’ house. It didn’t take anything at all to weight her down with the rim of a tire and drop her into the pond on the edge of the field.