Broken: A Leopold Blake Thriller

by Gordon Hopkins

  As Irwin raised a fist, he left himself open. Jerome hit him with two quick kidney punches with his left, and a right to his jaw. Jerome’s knuckles scraped against teeth and he thought he felt something crack, but it didn’t slow Irwin down. Jerome blocked one hit only to get hit in the side of the head with the next.

  Irwin was bigger and younger than Jerome, but untrained and undisciplined. He took wild swings at Jerome’s head, but Jerome kept pulling back. Irwin kept missing and reaching forward. Finally, as Irwin threw a swing, Jerome grabbed him by the arm and jerked him off his feet, hurling him to the floor.

  Jerome started for one of the fallen guns when the crack of a gunshot rang out. Jerome crumpled to the floor, clutching at his bleeding shin.

  “Gotcha,” Conor declared, ecstatic.

  A second later, a second shot rang out and Conor fell, a bullet in his brain.

  Leopold rushed to Jerome. “How bad is it?”

  “Never mind that. Be careful.”

  Irwin was gone. So was his gun.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  Gil wheeled himself back to his desk and tried to find something to cut away the tape and free himself. A staple remover? It wasn’t ideal, but it could work. DiMauro reached for it, but his desk rapidly receded as his chair was yanked away. “Hey. What’s happening?”

  Irwin said, gleefully, “You’re going on a little journey, Di-Moron. Straight down.”

  DiMauro’s chair was wheeled through the office towards the elevator banks. He saw the doors for elevator two were opened but no elevator, just the empty shaft.

  “Wait. Don’t do this.”

  “You ruined my life. Everything bad that happened to me was your fault.”

  “I was just doing my job. I didn’t even know you.”

  Irwin thrust the chair towards the elevator shaft. DiMauro splayed his legs, his feet braced against the wall on either side of the door.

  “Come on, man. This is happening. Just accept it.”

  Irwin pushed the chair harder. DiMauro knew from experience he wouldn’t last long. In a contest of strength, DiMauro was hopelessly outmatched. He shouted, “Somebody help me!”

  “Let him go,” Leopold said, pointing his gun at Irwin’s head.

  Irwin quickly raised his gun in Leopold’s direction.

  “It doesn’t have to end like this, son.” Leopold said. “You can still get out of this alive.”

  “I’m gonna spend the rest of my life in prison, anyway. Why shouldn’t I kill the bastard who ruined my life? Killing him is all I have left. I’m here now because of DiMauro, so, really, all this is his fault.”

  While Irwin focused on Leopold, DiMauro gently pushed his toes against the carpet, slowly, very slowly and very quietly moving his chair back, step by step. He mentally willed the squeaky wheels to turn quietly so as not to alert Irwin.

  Irwin didn’t see what DiMauro was doing, but Leopold did and he tried to keep him talking. “What about your family? Don’t you care how they’ll feel if you do this?”

  “Family?” Irwin laughed, bitterly. “My father hates me. Oh, yeah. That’s DiMauro’s fault too.”

  Ding.

  Irwin swung his gun around towards elevator five. The door opened and the Old Lady said, “Don’t try it, boy. I may be old, but I’m still a crack shot.”

  DiMauro was now behind Irwin. He thrust out his legs and jammed his feet into the back of Irwin’s knees. As powerful as he was, he was unprepared for the blow. His knees involuntarily buckled and he pitched forward, down the elevator shaft with a scream. The scream stopped with a loud, clattering thunk.

  “Bye, Biff.”

  The Old Lady peered down the shaft into the darkness and heard a soft moan. “Damn, that cocksucker is hard to kill.”

  “Tell me about it.” DiMauro wiggled in his chair. “Can somebody get me out of this thing?”

  “There’s no time. We have to hurry. It’s …” Leopold looked at his watch. “Too late.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  5:02 P.M.

  Two minutes. Leopold couldn’t believe it. He was late by two minutes.

  Chavez arrived and called Inspector Hiro. “We’ve taken the building. Three suspects are dead. One is injured. One is still at large, so be careful.”

  “Is it over?” Jerome limped over to join the others, using a wheeled office chair as a walker. He saw the expression on Leopold’s face. “What’s wrong?”

  “We were too late. The money is gone.” Leopold turned to DiMauro. “How much?”

  DiMauro wiggled his chair again. “Isn’t anybody going to cut me loose?”

  “How much?!” Leopold shouted.

  “Ten million.”

  Leopold’s mouth dropped open. “What? You son of a bitch. You just sent ten million dollars to terrorists.”

  DiMauro said, plaintively, “They were going to kill me.”

  Leopold grabbed DiMauro by the collar and lifted him off the ground. “How many people are they going to kill using that money?”

  “Hey! Let him go.” Chavez threw his good arm around Leopold’s neck. Half a second later, Jerome grabbed Chavez by the shoulders with both hands.

  Chavez whispered menacingly, “You have your hands on a Federal Agent.”

  Jerome answered, “You have your hands on my boss.”

  The Old Lady cleared her throat, loudly. “Will you idiots let me know when you’re done jerking each other off?”

  Looking sheepish, the men released each other. She flicked open her switchblade and cut DiMauro’s bonds.

  He stood up and stretched. He tugged at a piece of tape across his chest. “Aw, man. This tie is ruined.”

  “Forget the damned tie, boy.” She closed the knife. “What did you do?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  The entire group followed DiMauro to his desk. With agonizing slowness, the Old Lady reached into her purse, pulled out reading glasses and slipped them on her nose. She bent over to read what was on the monitor. Then, she started making a wheezing, hacking noise. At first, Leopold thought she was having an asthma attack. Then, he realized she was laughing.

  “Care to let us in on the joke?” Leopold looked closely at the monitor. She pointed to the lower left hand corner of the screen, where he saw the letters T and S in red. “What does ‘TS’ mean?”

  “It stands for Training System.” DiMauro explained. “This is the program the company uses to train new claims processors. It’s identical to the real claims payment system except …”

  Having recovered, the Old Lady completed his sentence. “Except it doesn’t have access to funds.”

  “So you mean every insurance claim you paid, no money went anywhere? It just disappeared into the electronic ether?”

  DiMauro nodded.

  Jerome sat down on the chair he was using to support himself. “Excuse me. I’m glad that all worked out. Now, does anyone know what’s in that?” He pointed to the gym bag under DiMauro’s desk.

  DiMauro shrugged. “More guns, I think.”

  “I think we should find out,” Leopold said, taking hold of one end of the desk. “Mr. DiMauro, would you take the other end, gently, please?”

  Together, they lifted the desk and set it aside. Leopold squatted next to the bag and slowly unzipped it.

  Chavez whispered, “Is it?”

  Leopold whispered back, “Yes. It’s a bomb.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  Leopold asked Chavez, “Did you receive demolitions training from the FBI, by any chance?”

  “Training, yes. Experience, no. We need to evacuate the building and call in a bomb squad.” Leopold pulled out his phone, but Chavez stopped him. “Don’t. Cell phone signals can trigger some types of detonators.”

  “If Nasrin intended this to destroy evidence, it won’t go off until after five.”

  “It’s already after five.”

  “She would have given herself time to escape. Whether it has a timer or Nasrin has a remote detonator, we only h
ave minutes left.”

  “Then we can’t wait for the bomb squad.” Chavez said. “I’ll have to try and defuse it myself.”

  “Can you?”

  Chavez surveyed the inside of the bag. He saw packages of explosives wrapped in tape with coils of wire sticking out. He couldn’t even see the detonator. It was buried within the explosives, which would probably detonate if he tried to move them to find it. “I’m not optimistic. All the civilians need to leave. Go and tell Hiro what’s happening. Have her evacuate the building.”

  Jerome tried to take Leopold by the arm, but he pulled away. “I’m staying.”

  “No, you’re not.” Jerome said.

  “Chavez can’t disarm a bomb with one hand. I have to stay and help him.”

  “Then I’m staying too.”

  “What good will that do?”

  DiMauro and the Old Lady headed to the elevators, but DiMauro didn’t board.

  “What are you waiting for, dipshit?” She said.

  “B4.”

  “Before what?” Then the Old Lady realized what he meant. “You’re a genius.” She rejoined the group huddled on the floor around the deadly bag. “There’s a storeroom on the fourth floor with three-inch steel plates in the walls.”

  Leopold asked Chavez, “Will it be enough to contain the blast?”

  “Beats the hell out of me, but it’s our best shot.”

  Leopold said, “I’ll take the bag, but I need someone to take me to this room.”

  “I, uh, guess I will.” DiMauro said.

  “Good. The rest of you get the hell out of here.” Leopold very slowly and carefully lifted the bag by the handles. He followed DiMauro to the elevator. DiMauro pressed 4.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  DiMauro pressed himself flat against the wall of the elevator, trembling, during the ride.

  The elevator stopped with a ding, and the doors opened. DiMauro exited first, and Leopold followed slowly, holding the bag away from his body as he walked.

  “It’s down here at the end.” DiMauro whispered. At the end of the long hall, at the door marked B4, DiMauro took out his security badge and swiped it passed the magnetic reader. There was a beep. A green light flashed. DiMauro tried to turn the door handle.

  It didn’t move.

  He tried his card again. Beep. Flash. He pulled on the handle again, but the door wouldn’t open.

  “I don’t understand.” DiMauro tried again. Beep. Flash. “It won’t open.”

  “DiMauro …” Leopold began.

  “My card should work.” Beep. Flash.

  “DiMauro …”

  “I’m supposed to have access to this room.” Beep. Flash.

  “DiMauro …”

  “Why isn’t it working?” Beep. Flash.

  “DiMauro. You have to get that door open now.”

  “Um … uh … wait here.” DiMauro dashed down to the other end of the hall and disappeared through a door marked Copy Room. A moment later, DiMauro reappeared pushing a low-slung cart burdened with what looked like thirty boxes of copy paper. The cart moved slow at first but picked up speed as he pushed. Soon, inertia took over and the cart flew down the hall.

  “Outathaway!” DiMauro yelled.

  Leopold flattened himself against the wall as the cart whizzed by. The cart crashed into the door, knocking it off its hinges. The cart rolled through the door and tipped over on its side, depositing its cargo on the floor. The boxes of paper hit the floor and burst apart like overripe fruit, sending a blizzard of paper everywhere.

  Leopold set the bag on the floor just inside of the room, then hissed, “Let’s go. Take the stairs, not the elevator.”

  DiMauro was already moving, with Leopold on his heels. They practically leapt down each flight. All they had to do now was get out of the building before the bomb exploded.

  They almost made it.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  The explosion blew out all the windows on the main floor. The Bremler Building was saved by the earthquake retrofitting. Rollers under the building let it wobble, but it didn’t crumble. People standing outside saw the building visibly sway, but it still stood. Chandeliers that had been installed in the lobby in the seventies came crashing down, shattering on impact. Sparks flew and every light in the building went out. Then the lobby ceiling came down.

  As everyone stood outside, watching the destruction, feeling helpless, they saw huge white clouds billow out and across the street. At first they assumed fire. Then they realized the clouds weren’t smoke. It was plaster dust. The walls and ceiling in the lobby had collapsed and crumbled to powder.

  Ambulances and fire trucks and more police vehicles had arrived, surrounding the building. The slowly settling clouds of dust glowed with the red and blue light of emergency flashers.

  Two figures stepped out of the ruined lobby, gingerly walking on broken glass and stepping over chunks of masonry. Covered in white dust, they looked like they had been rolling in powdered sugar. Medics approached the men, both of whom were limping and banged up a bit, but not badly hurt. News media had arrived, but the police were keeping them away from the scene.

  DiMauro put his arm around Leopold’s shoulders and said, “You know, Leo. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

  “Not if you keep calling me Leo, it isn’t.”

  Both men were loaded into ambulances and spirited away. The Old Lady rode with DiMauro. Jerome and Chavez were already on the way to a hospital to have their injuries looked after.

  Another figure staggered out of the lobby, covered in white dust. The figure wobbled slightly and then fell face first onto the pavement. A police officer and two medics rushed to the prone figure. One of the medics carefully roller her over. She was wearing a blue smock and rubber cleaning gloves. “Dios mío.” She muttered, over and over. “Dios mío. Dios mío. Dios mío.”

  “One of the cleaning staff,” the medic concluded. “I don’t see any obvious injury, but she might have a concussion.”

  She was gently lifted onto a gurney and loaded into the back of an ambulance. The ambulance sped away with lights flashing and siren blaring.

  Five minutes later, Nasrin cut the ambulance driver’s throat and abandoned the ambulance by the side of the road.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  Leopold could smell fresh paint and hear people laughing. He knocked on the door.

  DiMauro opened the door, holding a martini glass filled with what looked like mouthwash. “Hey, Leo … uh, pold.

  “Hello, Mr. DiMauro. I hope you don’t mind my calling unannounced.”

  “Call me Gil. Would you like a bluetini?”

  Inspector Hiro was standing behind him, holding a bottle. “Don’t worry. We have real booze, too.”

  Leopold also saw Chavez and a couple of other people he didn’t recognize. They were huddled around the Old Lady, who was telling some ribald story from her time with the NYPD.

  “Come on in.” DiMauro said. “We were just having an impromptu get-together to celebrate the reopening of chez DiMauro.

  “I wanted … I just wanted to say goodbye. I’m heading back to New York tonight.”

  DiMauro out his hand. “Oh, well, thanks for saving my life.”

  Leopold took his hand. “Thank you. You saved a lot of lives, too.”

  “Hey, I did, didn’t I?” DiMauro called over his shoulder to the others. “Hear that? I’m a hero.”

  “You’re still an idiot.” The Old Lady snarked, then went back to her story.

  The door closed, and Leopold could hear more laughing as he walked away. He stepped into a cab.

  Jerome was waiting for him. “So, did he take the job?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think he would.”

  Leopold had done a thorough background check on DiMauro before he considered offering him a job as head of Security for Blake Health Care. Gil DiMauro made sixty thousand a year working for an insurance company and lived in a basement apartment wit
h bars on the windows. Leopold Blake was a billionaire who lived in a huge penthouse on Park Avenue. Yet somehow, Leopold thought DiMauro was happier than Leopold ever would be.

  Leopold told the cab driver, “San Francisco airport, please.”

  EPILOGUE: SINGAPORE

  “Say that again.”

  The voice on the telephone repeated, “Twelve-thousand, one-hundred sixty-one dollars and fourteen cents, American. That is your balance, ma’am. Would you like me to…?”

  She ended the call.

  A white-coated waiter approached and asked the elegantly dressed lady, “May I clear a table for you?”

  “Please.”

  With a motion he had performed many times before, the waiter swiped his arms across the table top and brushed peanut shells off the table top and onto the floor. The floor was littered with shells. It was a silly tradition, but one that had been around a long time, and the tourists enjoyed it. Shells crunched under the lady’s shoes as she approached a wicker chair and sat.

  “And what can I get for you?”

  “What else does one order at the Long Bar?” The lady spoke with a noticeable French accent.

  “One Singapore Sling, coming up.”

  “Merci.”

  The waiter bowed and withdrew. The Long Bar of the Raffles Hotel was aptly named. The dark wood of the bar seemed to stretch almost to the horizon. The waiter returned and delivered a hurricane glass filled with a pink, foamy concoction garnished with a wedge of pineapple and a cherry.

  Nasrin sipped her drink. She would have to find cheaper accommodations. Twelve-thousand would not last long in Singapore. She had counted on that ten million to finance her next project. Now, she would have to find the funds another way, and twelve thousand was not much of a stake. Still, she would spend one night at the Raffles Hotel before moving on. Might as well enjoy it while she could.

  Despite the inconvenience (and that was all it was – an inconvenience), Nasrin couldn’t help but smile a bit. There was no way the money could have been recalled. Therefore, it had never been sent in the first place. That meant it wasn’t the great Leopold Blake who had thwarted her, it was that silly, frightened insurance man.