Against the Law

by Against the Law (epub)

  The waiting room was nice enough—patterned carpet, fabric couch, lots of pillows, flowers in a vase and more flowers in the paintings on the walls and the embroidery on the back of the wooden armchair—like the granny’s cottage in a kid’s cartoon. But the cozy, soft vibe vanished when the door to the inner office opened and another couple came out, a big guy in a tracksuit and a thin woman in white slacks and loose silk top. The guy looked crushed. The woman looked furious.

  Gio squirmed. Carol squeezed his hand and whispered in his ear. “Just be honest and it will be fine.”

  Gio nodded, squeezing her hand back as a tiny woman in her seventies stood in the door. She wore denim overalls over a T-shirt, sandals, big glasses, and had a thick head of gray curls. Earrings and necklaces dangled. She smiled warmly and held out a bangled hand.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Caprisi?”

  Nodding, Gio stood formally and buttoned his jacket over his tie, as if in court. Carol popped up and shook hands.

  “I’m Carol and this is Gio.”

  The old lady beamed, taking Carol’s hand in both of hers. “So nice to meet you. I’m Dr. Meg Stein. Please come in.”

  She ushered them in, Carol leading the way, and shut the door behind them. Five minutes later they were rushing back out, Carol in the lead again, and Gio mumbling apologies. Neither spoke till they were in the car, her car, the Volvo wagon. She put the key in but didn’t crank it. Instead they sat, both with their belts on, and stared. Finally, Gio spoke in a low tone.

  “Not so easy being honest is it?”

  Carol stiffened, and gave him some sharp side-eye, but said nothing.

  In fact, Gio had been honest, more or less: When Stein, or Dr. Meg, as she preferred, had asked what the main problem that had brought them to therapy was, Carol had said, “infidelity,” and when Dr. Meg asked whose, he’d raised his hand. Avoiding specifics, like gender and flogging, he nevertheless explained that he’d been seeing someone, that it was a purely sexual arrangement (which wasn’t entirely true), and that, for him, it was completely separate from his marriage, a need he simply had to fulfill. And when the shrink asked why he assumed his wife couldn’t fulfill it, he cleared his throat and said, “Well, it’s a kink thing I guess.”

  “Oh . . .” she said, still smiling blandly. “And Carol, that’s not in your wheelhouse? Sometimes we can incorporate these desires into the marital sex life, find ways to fulfill each other’s fantasies.”

  Carol squirmed and Gio spoke: “More specifically . . . a kink thing with a man.”

  “Oh . . .” the shrink shrunk a little. “I see. And where is this man now?”

  Silence. Gio shrugged. “It’s over. He’s gone. For good.”

  “And Carol,” Dr. Stein asked, turning to her, “how does that make you feel, hearing Gio say he’s gone for good? Does that make you feel better? Do you believe it? Do you believe he’s really gone forever?”

  That’s when Carol stood up. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t talk about this.” And she ran.

  And now, in the car, she finally spoke, turning to Gio and saying, “I guess I’m like you now, full of secrets and lies and crimes I can never speak of. But I’m new at this, so sorry if I have a hard time swallowing my guilt. Not that you ever feel any.”

  “How do you know that?” Gio asked, anger flaring for a moment, then looked at her. “Is that honestly what you feel? You feel guilt? You wish you hadn’t killed Paul?”

  Carol shook her head. “No . . . actually. I don’t.”

  “I didn’t think so,” Gio said. “And neither did I. Until now. I feel guilty about putting you in that position.” He touched her shoulder. She stiffened, staring straight ahead, but didn’t pull away. “But I don’t blame you either.”

  “The honest truth? I’d do it again. And that’s why I feel guilt.”

  He squeezed her tighter. “You just did what you had to do.”

  Now she glanced at him. “So did you.”

  Gio’s phone beeped. He shifted but didn’t reach for it. Carol nodded. “Go ahead. Check it.”

  “It’s work,” Gio said and checked it. A text: Diner When? F. “It can wait,” he said.

  Carol shook her head. “You might as well go. I have to get back to the office anyway.”

  “Okay,” Gio told her. “Drop me outside the Parkview Diner on your way. I can call Nero or someone for a ride later.”

  As she started the engine and pulled out, Carol smiled ruefully. “Do you know how jealous I would have been before, worried about who you were meeting?”

  “You wouldn’t be if you knew, believe me,” Gio said, picturing the sweaty face breathing stale smoker’s breath on him. “But then again, you don’t really want to know.”

  Carol dropped Gio in front of the diner and he went in, stopping by the men’s room to splash water in his face, then got a take-out coffee at the counter before leaving again by the back door. Fusco was in the rear of the parking lot, by the dumpsters, smoking, with his city-issued black Chevy Impala nearby. Knowing how Gio felt about smoking, he stomped on the butt as he approached. He’d lost heavily on last week’s games and needed Gio’s goodwill, his protection when the bookies started to call.

  “So?” Gio asked, stepping out of view, into the space between the dumpsters. He sipped his coffee. “You look into this dope thing for me? This White Angel?”

  Fusco shrugged. “I tried, Gio. I staked out the spots. I even got baggies. But my captain doesn’t give a shit. She won’t approve an investigation.”

  “She doesn’t give a shit about a new heroin operation taking over New York? That’s a sad commentary on the state of law enforcement today.” In fact, Gio wouldn’t normally give a shit either. His own involvement in the drug world was minimal—some weed and coke along the routes his family’s Italian Ice and Soft Serve trucks worked on the Long Island beaches in season, and a general oversight over the trade in speed, molly, and so forth in his territories. A dispute among heroin dealers uptown and in Brooklyn was not his problem. But a big new operator with a superior product and organized enough to take over territory could upset the whole ecosystem. That worried him.

  “I’m sorry, Gio,” Fusco was saying. “What about that other friend of yours? You know, the guy they call sheriff. Put him on it.”

  “He’s not a real sheriff, Fusco. He can’t arrest people. That’s what I have you for.”

  “I didn’t mean . . .”

  “Anyway he’s out of town on business. What would get this captain of yours interested?”

  Fusco shrugged. “She’s interested in whatever the bosses tell her to be. Like if the mayor’s office starts bitching. Or the feds.”

  Gio snapped his fingers. “Good idea. Make that call.”

  Fusco wasn’t aware he’d had an idea. “The mayor won’t take my call, Gio. He doesn’t even know who I am, thank God.”

  “Not to the fucking mayor, you big mook. The FBI.”

  “I need more evidence that it’s a federal case. Can you tell me more?”

  “I can tell you that there’s no opium fields in Brooklyn. Or Queens. Or even Staten Island last time I checked. So that means the shit comes in from somewhere out of state. Probably someplace far away where they wear turbans. And that’s federal, right?”

  “Sure, Gio . . .”

  “So, you’re a detective, get out your magnifying glass and go find some clues and shit, Sherlock.” Gio finished his coffee and tossed the cup into the dumpster. “Or else pay what you owe.”

  “Right,” Fusco said. “I understand. I’m on it.”

  “Good. I have every confidence in your abilities.” As he turned to go, walking back to the diner, pulling out his phone to dial Nero, he shouted back: “You have a week.”

  5

  AGENT MIKE POWELL WAS in heaven. Or maybe that was a stretch, he admitted: no one, even those born there, could quite describe the Helmand region of Afghanistan as heaven these days. A rugged environment, it had its own harsh beauty and a grace
ful, ancient culture, but had been riven by constant warfare since 2001, under Taliban control for years, and torn by conflicts over the opium crop for who knows how long back into history. It was considered to be the most dangerous province in Afghanistan—which is saying something. But for Powell it was a chance at redemption and maybe a shot at much more.

  He’d been a rising young CIA agent, a smart analyst and a tough, effective operative, but his marriage, to an FBI agent, Donna Zamora, derailed him—or maybe even deranged him. He was intensely jealous and controlling, an impulse that was itself, ironically, beyond his control. He couldn’t help it. He found himself spying on her and eventually even using agency resources to try and snoop, all of which bit him right in the ass when they divorced. He lost custody of his daughter, Larissa, and came close to losing his job. But the agency decided it was less embarrassing—to itself—to just bury him, so he was parked in a secure New York office, running interference with the locals and feeding information to his luckier colleagues overseas. Then Joe Brody entered the picture. Convinced that something was up between him and Donna, both romantically and criminally, and forgetting at times that even if she was seeing Joe (which he had no evidence of) that wasn’t exactly “cheating” now that they were divorced, Powell tried to implicate them both in a recent case involving a diamond heist and heroin being brought into New York by terrorists. Instead, when the case broke, he was the one who ended up on the losing end: two of his informants vanished or dead, the FBI and NYPD recovering the stones, and, he suspected, Joe Brody eliminating the terrorists. Powell was screwed and expecting to really be fired this time when his phone rang, and his life changed.

  The voice on the phone had identified itself as Zahir, a somewhat mythic figure in intelligence circles, known as the Shadow. Zahir offered to help Powell, to act as an asset more or less, in exchange for unspecified favors. Why did Powell believe him? He didn’t. After ten years in the CIA he didn’t believe anything. Not only did everyone, and he meant everyone, lie, even when someone told the truth, it was for a reason, and that reason was often secret, a lie of the heart hiding behind the facts. But Zahir made him curious. For one thing, he’d called on Powell’s secure office line, which wasn’t supposed to be possible. Then, as soon as he’d told him he was at least interested in talking, Powell found himself transferred. Not, as he’d feared, to sit and stare at the Bering Straits in some ice tower for the next year, watching Russians scratch their frozen balls, but to Athens, an active station overseas. Did his superiors wonder why the fuck-up of the month was suddenly operational instead of getting punished? Probably, but they didn’t question it. After all, they too believed nothing except that everyone lies—it’s an occupational hazard. So who knows? Maybe the higher-ups had a use for Powell. Maybe this was a punishment in some inscrutable way. Or maybe the whole catastrophe had been part of some bigger, better lie and so not really a failure at all.

  In any case, when he arrived in Athens, Powell was handed a fake passport and a plane ticket to Kabul and told to rendezvous in Kandahar with one Rick Toomey, formerly a black ops commando for the army, presently a military contractor. Powell’s new assignment? To offer assistance and expertise to the people Toomey worked for, the Wildwater Corporation, a company that did business with the US military and intelligence forces in the Middle East. In other words, after a season on the bench, he was back in the game.

  But the real joy didn’t kick in until later. He had gotten to the hotel, taken a shower, and changed when there was a knock on his door. Toomey. He was, Powell had to admit right off, a good-looking man: blue eyes, close-cut blond hair, easy smile. He was also, he quickly learned, excellent company. Asking if Powell had eaten, he immediately dismissed the idea of dining in the hotel and took him to a small, comfortable, homey place where they sat in a lovely courtyard and, as soon as he stepped in and smelled the roasting lamb, he knew the food would be excellent. It was. And over dinner, coffee, and the drinks he surreptitiously supplied from a bottle of scotch he poured under the table, Toomey kept up an easy, funny patter, regaling Powell with stories about the time he came under fire while in the latrine and had to take cover in the waste tank, the time he had to crawl in silence under the legs of some tied-up camels and remain still while one pissed on his head, and the time he broke into the wrong villa in a South Asian city, thank God he was only there for recon, and had to flee after accidentally catching a US diplomat in bed with a Chinese diplomat.

  “What a relief to be talking to someone with top security clearance,” he said, as Powell laughed. “Normally I have to redact my best material.” He poured them both more scotch under the table and handed Powell his. “But what I’m going to tell you now is outside the parameters completely. It has no level of classification because it doesn’t even exist.”

  “You’re going to tell me who Zahir is,” Powell said. He sipped his drink; really he just touched it with his lips. He was on high alert and wanted to stay that way.

  “If you still want to know. Only a half dozen people in the world do, and if you become one of them, there’s no going back. Now’s your chance to walk away.”

  Powell shook his head. “I came too far to leave without answers.”

  “Good,” Toomey said, and smiled that craggy, movie-star smile. “I’m glad to hear you say that. But first, a couple of questions. Then some answers.” He pulled a folder from his satchel. “Since you’ve been tapped to join us, a few new faces have shown up around here. I wonder if you can identify any of them.”

  He slid the folder across and Powell looked: surveillance shots of varying quality, taken from odd angles with a long distance lens. The first few were of someone he didn’t recognize, a young guy, Middle-Eastern looking but in a Supreme hoodie and jeans so probably American or Western European. “Him I don’t know.” The next were of a blond woman in her mid to late twenties. He couldn’t name her, but it was easy to picture her with a gun on a dark Brooklyn street. “Her I’ve seen. But I don’t know much.”

  “That’s okay,” Toomey said. “We do. Another associate of ours has known her since she was a little Russian brat stealing candy.” He tapped the third set of photos. “What about contestant number three?”

  Now Powell smiled, as he flipped through the photos of the lean, hard-looking man in the sunglasses and the black T-shirt. “Oh, him I know very well. That’s Joe Brody, aka the bouncer, aka the sheriff, aka a big pain in everybody’s ass back home.”

  “A pal of yours?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Good,” Toomey said, closing the file. “Because he’s just expanded into ass pain over here as well. And they cure that with a bullet in Afghanistan.”

  “Suits me,” Powell said, and that was the moment when he realized this new job was going to be more like a vacation.

  Toomey finished his drink and stood, holding out his hand. “Then let me be the first to say welcome aboard, Mike.”

  Mike stood and shook. “Thanks, Rick.”

  Toomey shouldered his satchel and threw some cash down on the table. “Now let’s go upstairs and meet Zahir.”

  6

  YELENA FOLLOWED JOE AND Hamid on the highway back to Kandahar, Joe mostly deflecting Hamid’s eager questions about Yelena—yes, he knew her and they had worked together before, yes, she was the badass Russian chick Juno had told him about—though Joe didn’t answer when Hamid asked if Juno had really dusted her butt for handprints (he had, but he should have shut up about it)—and wondering about questions of his own, like how the hell did she get from Queens, where he last saw her, fleeing a room strewn with corpses, to a dope deal in deep Afghanistan?

  Back at the hotel where Joe and Hamid were staying, all three went to the restaurant, found a quiet corner, ordered, and, while Hamid gorged, Yelena talked and Joe listened.

  “I knew when I left New York that I couldn’t go anyplace where I am known for a while. First I tried France, the Riviera. The beach was nice. But I got bored. And I needed money.”
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  “Bored?” Joe asked. “It was only a few weeks. Why didn’t you just rob the fancy hotel safes? Take it easy for a while?”

  Hamid snorted as he scooped humus into a pita. “Wow you think robbing hotel safes is easy?”

  Joe smiled at Yelena. “For her it is.”

  She shrugged. “Stealing old lady’s jewelry is more something for when I retire maybe.”

  Hamid laughed. “That’s awesome. You’re like the pink panther.”

  Yelena frowned. “Pink? Because I am a girl?”

  Joe waved it off. “It’s a movie. Believe me she’s more of a black cat. So then what?”

  “I got recognized. Some Russian oligarch’s mistress knew me so I had to go before word got to my enemies in Moscow. I heard about the bounty on Zahir. I decided, why not come here and kill him?”

  Hamid laughed again, his mouth full, waving a shish kebab skewer. “Just like that? That’s cool as shit.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Shit?”

  Joe explained. “It’s a compliment. He’s impressed. He’s okay; Juno knows him.”

  She nodded at that. She liked Juno.

  “You’re totally awesome,” Hamid told her. “Cat burglarizing. Killing overlords. Like a Marvel hero.”

  Yelena looked doubtful. “Thank you,” she said politely.

  Joe handed him a napkin. “Stop drooling and eat with your mouth closed.” Then to Yelena: “So what happened? No luck finding Zahir?”

  Yelena laughed. “There is no Zahir. How do you say, the myth you use to scare children so they behave?”