Even the resurrection of his father would mean nothing if he failed.
Johnny knew he needed to calm himself. Only cool heads prevailed. Physical toughness was nothing; it was mental toughness — emotional toughness — that mattered. A man’s body could keep going as long as his mind willed it.
Johnny focused on everything he’d just been told, sifting through it for any information that might prove pertinent, that he could use.
He also focused on the three black cases on the floor beside his seat.
Impact-resistant plastic, two of them handgun cases, one of them much larger.
After a moment Johnny remembered something Dickey had said earlier. He looked into the rearview mirror, saw that the man was already looking at him.
Before Johnny could speak, though, Dickey said, “What’s wrong with your collarbone?”
Johnny realized then that he’d been rubbing it. He lowered his hand. “Nothing.”
“How long has it been bothering you?”
“I don’t know,” Johnny lied.
It was obvious he didn’t want to talk about it, so Dickey let it go. “What’s on your mind, Johnny?”
“You said that none of us kids would exist if it weren’t for you. What did you mean by that?”
“Your father met your mother because of me.”
Johnny nodded, was content to leave it at that, but Dickey continued.
“Actually, your father was going to call the whole thing off at one point. He believed life with him would be too dangerous for her. But I talked him out of it. She didn’t care about the risk — she loved him, couldn’t imagine her life without him — so why should he care? It was as much her choice as his.” Dickey paused, then said, “A month later they were married, and less than a year after that, Cat was born.”
Johnny thought about that, then said, “Cat says you’re a mass murderer.”
Dickey smiled. “Of course she does.”
“Are you?”
Dickey seemed to understand the necessity of the question, and what it really implied.
How could my father be friends with you?
“We come from different worlds, Johnny. Different generations. The New York your father and I grew up in is not the New York you and Cat know. Your father had a choice when he joined the FBI. It was a choice faced by every kid in our generation who grew up in New York and went on to become a cop or a Fed. We all knew each other as kids. A kid from Queens who grew up to become a Queens cop had once been friends with the crooks he’d spend his career chasing. Neighbors as kids, sworn enemies as adults. Your father and I grew up together in Hell’s Kitchen. When he became a Fed, he could have come after me — I would have been easy pickings. But he saw the bigger picture. He saw beyond black and white. He realized he could use me to his advantage. He knew I’d be using him, too, but the good that would come out of it would far outweigh the bad.”
“You were his informant.”
“His protected FBI informant, yes.” Dickey said that as if the distinction was an important one.
Or maybe it was important to him that Johnny view him as something other than a run-of-the-mill, street-level snitch.
“Your father couldn’t have done what he did without me. He knew it, and the FBI knew it. The fact that I prospered while others were carted off to jail was the price of our doing business. It was a price the FBI was more than willing to pay.”
“You saved him from Tambov because he was your meal ticket.”
“You can think that if you want to, Johnny. But just like you wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for me, I wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for your father. And his father. I would have been killed a long time ago by my own. An interesting lesson in compassion, don’t you think? The fact that your father had saved my life meant I’d be around to save his fifty years later. And yours tonight.”
“And the purge after he was taken?”
Dickey shook his head. “Never happened. I knew who the betrayer in my crew was, so why would I need to go looking? Fiermonte was the one doing the purging. It suited him that everyone thought it was me, though. And it suited me, for obvious reasons.” He paused again. “The Feds all but broke the back of the New York underworld a decade ago, Johnny. Antiracketeering laws put a lot of crime bosses in prison for life. Which is where I would have ended up sooner or later if I hadn’t agreed to work with your father. If he hadn’t offered me the chance when he did.”
Johnny thought about the night he and Haley were instructed to close the bar early so a porn movie could be shot there.
He also thought of the number of legitimate businesses — restaurants and bars, for the most part — that Dickey seemed to have an active hand in.
All that made sense now.
Then Johnny remembered something about that night he and Haley had closed early.
The young director talking to his three naked actors had had a thick Russian accent.
And Tambov, who had gotten close enough to Dickey to betray him, was Russian as well.
Johnny pointed these two things out.
“After the Soviet Union collapsed, Fiermonte’s Russians spread across Europe fast, and within a decade they were looking to come over here. Like I said, the New York underworld was on the ropes, but after 9/11 the FBI suddenly became more interested in spending its resources chasing after Arabs. They literally backed off overnight, and the city was wide open again. The Russians saw their chance and came in droves. You studied history down there in DC, Johnny. Magna cum laude and all that. Tell me, what happened when the conquistadors came to the Americas looking for gold?”
“The indigenous populations were wiped out.”
Dickey nodded. “Exactly. Something like ninety-five percent of them in the first year alone. And history always repeats itself, right? I was in better shape than a lot of other bosses, my family was still strong, but I could see the writing on the wall. At first I tried to work with the Russians. My family lives here, I didn’t want war in the streets. As long as they saw me as valuable — as long as I could help them make money — we stayed on friendly enough terms. Business is business, right? And porn, Johnny, is a very lucrative business. A billion dollars a year in this country alone. Who wouldn’t want a slice of that?”
“That doesn’t explain why Tambov was working for you. Why a Russian was so far into your inner circle that you sent him to look for your oldest friend’s son.”
“Why expend resources trying to destroy an enemy from without when you can more easily destroy him from within?”
It took Johnny a moment. “Tambov was your spy.”
“A good one, too. He was part of that first wave of Russians to come over here, but his family was back home. They’d been mistreated by his bosses and he wasn’t happy. He was easy enough to buy, and over time he proved himself to me. Still, he was expendable, and not so clearly connected to me, both of which were good reasons to send him instead of Richter to look for your brother. Another good reason was that if anything went wrong, suspicion would fall on the Russians. But the best reason was this: if I’ve learned one thing about Russians in the past ten years, it’s that they have a knack for certain jobs.”
Johnny remembered how Tambov had lured Jeremy out of hiding.
The girl who called herself Penny.
And who, once Jeremy had been taken, simply disappeared.
As Johnny thought about that, he realized something else.
“Smith is doing to Fiermonte what Tambov did to you.”
Dickey nodded. “It’s an old trick, Johnny. The oldest in the book. The fact that it’s still around means it usually works. Ultimately, Fiermonte was able to buy Tambov away from me with the promise of something I couldn’t offer — a new life for him and his son, via the Witness Protection Program. Before Tambov’s betrayal, the info he provided helped me stay one step ahead of his bosses. Even though the Russians and I were partners in a number of ventures, they were always looking for ways to edge me out and take more. They ha
ve an eye for weakness, and Tambov helped my family appear stronger than it actually was. But for the past three years I’ve been fighting a losing battle. It’s only a matter of time before they control everything. New York isn’t their home, Johnny, their families don’t live here, so they don’t care if there’s fighting in the streets. They’re just here to exploit the resources for as long as there are resources to exploit. And they don’t fear the FBI. The real bosses stay in Moscow, drink champagne, and fuck their women while the grunts do the work. If a grunt gets arrested, who cares? If all of them get rounded up, it doesn’t matter. Another wave of grunts is waiting for its chance at a share of the American Dream.”
Dickey paused. “Maybe Patton was right. Maybe we should have joined forces with the Germans in forty-five and declared war on Stalin. We should have wiped the fuckers off the map while we had the chance. Imagine how different the last sixty years would have been if we had.”
Johnny said nothing.
The two men looked at each other’s reflection for a long moment.
“I’ve eliminated rivals, Johnny,” Dickey said finally. “By any and all means possible. I’ve extorted, murdered, you name it. I’m a crook — a crook who betrayed other crooks. I don’t apologize for any of it. But Fiermonte, he’s a traitor, plain and simple. He took an oath when he became a prosecutor and quickly broke it. All he wants is to get rich — richer than he already is. If the world turns to shit in the process, so be it. And the men he works for, they’re as much of a threat to our national security as the Soviet Union ever was. Maybe even more so, because they aren’t bogged down by ideology and bureaucracy. Tell me, Johnny, you must have seen the sex trade in Bangkok, right? In Vietnam, too.”
Johnny nodded.
“There’s a market that Fiermonte’s friends do very well in, and it makes Thailand look like a pajama party.”
Johnny knew what Dickey was referring to. He read the papers, knew the world, the history of it, the way it was now, and the way, in too many cases, it would always be.
“Human trafficking is a multibillion-dollar-a-year business,” Dickey said. “You sell a kilo of cocaine, and that’s it, you’ve gotten all you’re going to get out of it. Same thing with weapons or stolen military tech or depleted uranium, all of which Fiermonte’s Russians have sold to the highest bidder in the past year. But there is one commodity that can be sold over and over again. It’s the only thing in this world that can be, and that makes it a very attractive property to those who love money.”
Johnny felt a wave of dread flood his stomach as he waited for Dickey to continue.
“With the smallest investment, Johnny, you can generate a literal lifetime of profit from a human being. Women and children mainly, but there’s a market for men, too. And if you think it’s a problem limited to the Eastern Bloc countries or Southeast Asia, think again. Two hundred thousand kids were sold in the US last year. Traffickers run ads in the back of the Village Voice, for Christ’s sake. The global numbers, though, are in the tens of millions. That’s yearly, Johnny. That’s people sold to other people. Certain nationalities are in high demand — it depends on what part of the world you’re in. The Gulf region loves Ukrainian and Lithuanian women. Nigerian women are big in Italy and Germany. But there’s one nationality that’s wanted everywhere and will always bring huge sums to the seller, not to mention years and years of returns to the buyer. That’s Western women. White women. A beautiful, natural redhead with exotic tattoos, for example, could easily bring a few hundred grand. And the man who buys her, when he’s done with her himself, will get top dollar for her again and again. For as long as he keeps her alive and dependent on him, which men like that have down to a science. Cat’s not that pretty, of course, but her pedigree would appeal to certain types. I mean, what criminal boss wouldn’t want his turn with a captured FBI agent?”
Dickey paused, then said, “You father wants to protect you from this, Johnny, and I can understand that. But I think you need to know the real danger Cat and your girlfriend are in, if they are with Fiermonte right now. Like I said, he’s in this to get rich, no matter what it takes or who it hurts.”
Dickey stopped there. He and Johnny looked at each other. After a moment, his cell phone rang.
Dickey answered, and Johnny could hear Richter’s voice coming through the earpiece. Even if Richter had been sitting next to Johnny, his voice probably would have sounded as far away and tinny.
All Johnny could focus on now was Haley and Cat.
A half-minute later, Dickey closed the phone.
“Jeremy’s out of surgery,” he announced. “They closed up the artery, but he’s lost a lot of blood.”
It took Johnny a moment to speak. “He’ll need a transfusion,” he said. He spoke softly, absently.
“Richter’s the same type as you guys. And they’re arranging for other donors, too.”
Johnny nodded. His vision was blurring at the edges again. He looked away, blinked once, then again. It did little good.
He needed all his faculties now, needed to be sharp and strong and clear.
And yet he felt as if he were wavering on the edge of a precipice, being battered by a wind that somehow came from all directions.
“It doesn’t look to me like you’re up to donating anyway,” Dickey said.
Johnny ignored that.
Dickey started to ask Johnny if he had injured his collarbone during the car crash in Brooklyn, if he could recall actually striking it at some point or if the pain just came out of nowhere, but before he could get more than a few words out, the passenger door of Smith’s car swung open. Then the driver’s door opened, too.
Johnny’s father and Smith were hurrying through the rain toward the Mercedes.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Dickey reached across the seat and opened the passenger door. John Coyle didn’t get in, simply ducked his head and spoke through the open door. Johnny looked at the man standing behind his father.
Smith, the smoker, dressed in jeans and a leather café racer jacket over a hooded sweatshirt.
The man Johnny had shot in the chest.
Smith locked eyes with Johnny, then nodded once. Johnny returned the greeting.
“We’ve got Fiermonte,” John Coyle said.
He was holding a small device — the micro-digital recorder that had been concealed in Smith’s bullet-resistant vest.
His tone, however, was less than triumphant.
Grave, even.
“What’s wrong?” Dickey said.
John Coyle’s eyes went to his son. “They have Cat and your girlfriend.”
Dickey was looking at Smith. “Who has them, exactly?”
“Fiermonte, Gregorian, and the woman Fiermonte brought in from Detroit,” Smith answered. “And Morris is on his way there now.”
“On the way where?” Dickey demanded.
“Fiermonte has a place in Westchester,” Smith said. “Since that knuckleheaded Russian spy ring got busted by the FBI in New Jersey a few years ago, he began taking all kinds of extreme precautions. He and Morris use the place to meet with their Russian contacts and exchange info. Verbal and face-to-face, no calls or e-mails or texts.” He paused, took a breath, then said, “Cat’s been drugged. She’s unconscious in one of the upstairs rooms.”
“And Haley?” Johnny said.
Smith looked at him. “She’s in the other room.” He had something else to say but was clearly hesitant to speak it.
Everyone could see that.
“What?” Dickey said.
“Fiermonte made me take their clothes. So they couldn’t escape.”
Johnny and Dickey glanced at each other furtively, and then Johnny looked at his father.
John Coyle caught this exchange between his friend and son, and, by the way he looked at Dickey, it was obvious Johnny had been told the truth about the danger Haley and Cat now faced.
About the man holding them.
The man — the trusted family friend — the Coy
le children had known all their lives.
But before John Coyle could say anything, Dickey spoke.
“I think we’re out of time, John. Donnie will know he only has a few hands to play here. And none of them end well for the girls.”
Nodding, John Coyle looked again at his son.
Soldier to soldier now more than father to child.
With his eyes on Johnny, John Coyle said to Smith, “How far away is Fiermonte’s house?”
“I can get you there in a half hour. But the state police can get there a lot sooner.”
“No police,” John Coyle said.
Johnny understood why; they were four men — a fugitive, a traitor, a mobster, and an undercover agent — who each still had reasons to remain, for now, unseen and unknown.
Under the radar, off the grid.
“It’s time for your resurrection, John,” Dickey said.
Immediately, John Coyle’s eyes shifted to the cell phone clutched in his son’s hand.
The look on the man’s face was even graver than it had been a moment before.
Johnny felt his grip on the phone tighten even more.
“I’m going to need you to give that to me,” John Coyle said.
Johnny wanted to know why.
“Do you trust me, son?”
Johnny nodded. “Yes.”
“Then give it to me, please.”
This Johnny didn’t understand.
But he nonetheless handed the phone to his father, who quickly removed the battery and handed the two pieces to Dickey.
“I’m assuming the place is secluded,” John Coyle said to Smith. “If he uses it for secret meetings.”
“It is.”
“Do you know the layout? Inside and out?”
“Yes.”
“When are you due back?”
“Now. But I’m supposed to pick up supplies on my way, so that’ll buy me some time.”
“Will they see your car from the house?”
“The driveway’s pretty long, and there’s a point about halfway up when headlights point at the house and light up all the front rooms for a few seconds.” Smith nodded. “They’ll know I’m coming.”
The Betrayer Page 40