The Ghost Syndicate

by K R Hill

  “How can I remember so many exciting details?”

  “Don’t be a dick.”

  “Me? You make me sit in the car, and I’m the dick?”

  Before Connor closed the door, he leaned forward and whispered: “And try not to shoot anyone.”

  He swiped the security pass and entered the lobby and met Dalton in front of the elevators. They stepped inside the first car, and when the doors were closing, Connor pressed the button for the ninth floor. The elevator stopped at another floor on the way up and picked up two passengers who were so preoccupied on their cell phones that they hardly looked up.

  Connor and Dalton got out and hurried to the stairwell. Side by side they trotted up the metal stairs and pushed open the door onto the roof. Dalton waved and Connor walked over to where he was standing beside what looked like a crane perched near the edge of the building.

  “That’s it? You expect me to dangle out over the side of the building in that thing?”

  “Window washers do it all day long.”

  “You didn’t tell me it looked so flimsy.” Connor grabbed a cable and tugged, walked around the machine one more time, and kicked the aluminum floorboards.

  “Come on, jump on,” said Dalton, waving the control box.

  “You know how to drive this thing?”

  “When we were kids, Ted and I did washed windows for a summer. You’d be amazed what you see through those windows.”

  Connor tugged the railing around the platform, and climbed on.

  Dalton pressed a button and the little platform swung over the side of the building. Once they were clear of the edge, Dalton pressed another button and they descended into the night. They descended from the ninth floor to the eighth. When they stood at the same level as the windows before them, Dalton pressed another button. The platform stopped suddenly and banged against the window.

  Connor shouted and wrapped his arms around the cable. “Take it up. Take it up.”

  Dalton laughed. “I used to do that to Ted too. You should have seen him. Big old Ted almost started crying.”

  “What a friend. He should have shot you. I’m gunna shoot you. Take us up.” Connor unwrapped his arms from around the cable.

  Dalton hit the button and the platform bounced, and he laughed. “Okay, no more. I don’t want you to crap your pants.”

  “Too late. Take us up,” shouted Connor.

  “Stop whining. I got to figure out how to make it move horizontally.”

  “You ass, you said you could drive it.”

  “I can.” Dalton pushed a button and the platform moved to the left. He pushed another button and it moved to the right.

  “Okay,” said Connor. “This should be the Ghrazenko offices.” Beyond the window sat dark offices. And past the darkness, through a doorway, he saw workers and computer screens.

  Dalton drove the platform to what looked like an unoccupied office, took out his handgun and aimed it at the glass. “Now remember,” he shouted over the sound of a passing helicopter. “We’re on a swing. Don’t try to jump into the office. The platform will move away from you as you push off, and you’ll eat the pavement.”

  Connor wrapped his arms around the cable again.

  “You have grease smeared across your face.” Dalton pointed.

  “So why is that funny, you ass? Just shoot the damn window and get me off this thing.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why? Shoot it or I will.”

  “I have to hide the flash.”

  “Take off your jacket and shoot through it.”

  “But it’s brand new.”

  “Fucker.” When another helicopter passed, Connor wrapped up his jacket and fired through it. The bullet thudded against the glass. Connor aimed at the window edge, and fired two rounds into the aluminum frame. The black window burst and fell around his feet.

  Dalton held the edge of the window frame and pulled the platform against the building.

  Connor climbed inside. He landed on carpet and rolled, jumped up and trotted along the wall to a doorway, slowly twisted the knob and looked into the room. It was the well-decorated office of an executive, complete with fifty-gallon fish tank full of tropical fish, a standup desk, and a putting range against the wall. He crossed the office with his weapon drawn, reached the door, and waited.

  A moment later Dalton squatted beside him, his back against the wall.

  “That’s the main corridor out there. There’s going to be security patrols.”

  “Okay,” said Dalton. “Let’s go get the fucker for Sanchez.”

  Connor nodded and twisted the door knob. As he opened the door and rushed into the corridor, he felt Dalton’s hand in his belt. It was standard military style, telling him that the man behind him had his back.

  They trotted twenty feet up the corridor.

  Suddenly a woman stepped out of an office and dropped the pile of papers she was carrying. Her scream echoed along the hallway.

  “Move,” said Connor. “This way.”

  “They’re going to be coming now.”

  Connor ran to the end of the hall where it turned to the left. There he stopped and pushed his back against the wall, leaned forward just enough to look around the corner. At the end of the corridor stood two bodyguards beside a door. He raised two fingers and pointed up the hall.

  Dalton nodded and held up a finger, then two. The instant he raised a third finger, they ran around the corner.

  Before the bodyguards even got their weapons drawn, they clutched their chest and fell to the ground. Blood flowed into the carpet around them.

  Connor ran straight at the bodyguards, firing at the doorknobs of the double doors, and crashed into them at full speed. The doors burst open and he ran into the office.

  It took him a moment to realize that this was a high-rise building. The room was decorated like a house, with beautiful cabinets covering one wall and exquisite sofas another. But what gave the entire room its opulence was the fine wainscoting three feet high around the perimeter, as though it’d been taken from an English castle.

  For a second he froze, until he saw Teddy Ghrazenko in a hot tub with an attractive young woman on either side.

  Connor hurried to the hot tub. “You and you,” he said, pointing his gun. “Get out of here. Now.”

  The women screamed and spoke about how they had been forced to do this as they climbed naked from the tub, ran to their clothes on the sofa, picked them up and ran from the room.

  “Well,” said Teddy, sipping champagne. “If it isn’t Connor and Dalton, the two men I’ve been searching for.”

  Connor grabbed a lamp off the table and jerked the cord out of the wall. He smashed it against an end table and popped the blub. With the cord wrapped around his hand, he carried the lamp to Teddy Ghrazenko and hit him up side his head. “Yeah,” snarled Connor. “Smalltalk. That’s what we’re here for.”

  Teddy grabbed his face. Blood flowed down his cheek and neck, and dripped into the bubbling water.

  “I got two paintings that belong to you,” said Dalton, staring down the barrel of his 9 mm. “You can have them back and your dad will never know they went missing. In exchange for the paintings, I want the names of the cartel members who wiped out the families of two Rangers in two thousand fourteen.”

  Teddy chuckled, poured champagne into his hand and wiped it over the cut on his face. “That was a long time ago.”

  Dalton fired a round and put a crease in Teddy shoulder. “Think it over. You have another shoulder.”

  Connor pulled a desk away from the wall, ripped the extension cords from the floor behind it, and carried it to the hot tub. He smiled and plugged the lamp into the extension cord, and held it above the water. “If I touch this to the water your dick’s going to explode.”

  Teddy climbed out and covered himself with a hand, sidestepped to the sofa, grabbed his pants and pulled them on.

  “Do it now,” said Dalton.

  Connor marched over to Teddy
Ghrazenko and grabbed him by the hair and took out his cell phone and began snapping selfies with one arm around Teddy. Then he moved away and took a few full body shots to make sure whoever was looking at them could see the photos had been taken in the office.

  Dalton pulled a drawer from a desk and flung it to the floor, pulled out another and dropped that too. In the third drawer he found a note pad and a pen and sat them on the table. “The names. Now. If I find out those names are false, those photos of you partying with the enemy are going straight to daddy and every cartel member I can think of. I also have photos of the paintings showing that they were in my possession. That will prove you cut a deal. You won’t live a week.”

  Teddy Ghrazenko leaned over the table and wrote furiously. “This is the guy that ordered the hit. And this is the bank the payments went through. That’s the account number, and these are the names of the soldiers who carried out the order.”

  Dalton snatched up the paper, folded it, and stuffed it into a pocket.

  “If I remember correctly, those paintings went missing with a large sum of money. That was my father’s money.”

  “That’s right,” said Dalton. “And you’re going to reimburse your father with your own money.”

  “Hey, you better look at this.” Connor stood at a computer screen divided into eight segments of a security network.

  “Watch Teddy.”

  Dalton stepped to the computer.

  “Bottom left,” said Connor.

  Dalton held the desk with either hand and leaned forward. “You got to be kidding me.” He pointed at the screen and looked over at Connor. “That’s Zakai. That guy’s a slippery snake. Let’s go get him.”

  Connor stared down at the prisoner. In a flash he brought up his pistol and fired a round through Teddy Ghrazenko’s right foot. Then he leaned forward and whispered in his ear: “I would rather have seen your dick explode, but you’re not going to be running after us on one foot.”

  Connor ran along the corridor and made it to the elevator without seeing another soul.

  As the door was closing, Dalton reached over and thumped the down button with a fist. But the elevator door did not open.

  “Did you have to shoot him? Couldn’t you find a baseball bat?”

  “You can’t trust these guys. That was the only way I could be sure he wasn’t going to come after us.”

  They stepped into the elevator when it arrived, and didn’t speak.

  A couple of minutes passed before Dalton started laughing. “Your dick is going to explode? Really?”

  Connor smiled. “That would have made my day.”

  After traveling a few floors, the elevator stopped and the doors opened. Standing there was a man with earbuds and wires dangling from them. In his hands was a stack of files. His shirt and slacks were wrinkled as though he had slept in them. The executive pushed his glasses up further on his nose. He looked over two men carrying hand guns, said, “Oh, Lord no,” dropped the files and ran.

  “I hope the doctor doesn’t let Zakai slip away.”

  Dalton pushed the door button. “I hope he doesn’t try to stop him, or we’re going to have another dead man on her hands.”

  Connor ran through the lobby, burst out the front door, and stopped.

  “There he is. Black Rover.” Connor pointed. “Block the exit.” He leaped down the steps and ran across the street. When he got close, he pulled his weapon and aimed at the driver as the SUV rolled toward him. He squeezed the trigger, but released it because the vehicle was rolling without power, just coasting slowly along. Then it stopped.

  He approached from the rear, trying to keep the vehicle between himself and the driver’s window. Staring down the barrel of his gun, he reached for the little button to release the door, but jerked his hand away when he saw a flash inside the vehicle, and heard a muffled pop. Through the window he saw blood splatter covering the driver’s window.

  To his surprise, a door opened on the opposite side of the Rover. Connor ran to that side and pointed his weapon. A cane came out of the vehicle and touched the pavement.

  Dr. Morganstern climbed out and tapped his pipe against the door, and shuffled away as though he didn’t have a care in the world; as though he was out for a walk on a nice summer evening.

  Connor glanced in the SUV. In the driver’s seat sat Zakai, slumped over the steering wheel, blood trickling out the bullet hole in the side of his head.

  “Hey,” shouted Connor, running toward the doctor. “What happened?”

  The doctor hung his cane on an arm, held up his pipe, struck a match, and drew through the mouth piece as the flame touched the tobacco. The old man looked up and hunched his shoulders. “Mr. Zakai was terribly depressed about having left his young daughter. It seems he couldn’t live with himself and decided to end it all.” The old man hunched his shoulders, turned and shuffled across the parking lot.

  Connor shook his head, shoved his weapon into its side holster, and snapped the strap to secure it in place as he walked back to the Rover. He glanced around the interior and stopped searching when he saw the old Lugar in Zakai’s hand. “Sonofabitch,” he said.

  Connor heard someone run up behind him.

  “Did you get him? What happened?” asked Dalton. He poked his head inside the vehicle and looked around. “Oh, headshot. How’d you do that.”

  Connor walked away and called over his shoulder: “You better ask the doctor.”

  “The doctor?”

  “Look at the gun in his hand.”

  “Sonofabitch. I guess he was right: That gun had one more killing in it.”

  “I’ll get the doc’,” said Dalton. “We better get out of here.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Connor sat beside the hospital room. A table stretched across the bed above Bartholomew. On the table sat a plate of cold food: a blob of mashed potatoes with yellow gravy, an assortment of green and gold chopped vegetables, and a half-eaten roll stuck in the gravy. Nurses chatted in the hall behind him. On the other side of the room, beyond the curtain that separated the two beds, a commercial was playing on a television.

  “They said I’m getting out soon.” Bartholomew shifted about the bed and pushed the table aside.

  “You’re awake. That’s good, because I have some news. I spoke with your doctor and you’re getting out right now.”

  Bartholomew looked about and motioned Connor to move closer. “How did the case go?”

  “Good. I’m meeting everybody tomorrow so we can settle up. I also bought your ticket to Haiti like we spoke about. I know you have to go. I understand.”

  “I just need to know who my father was.”

  “I’m sorry I pulled you into this thing, Bart. Maybe we should have left it alone.”

  “Don’t be carrying that. You’d do the same thing if you had the chance to do it over.”

  “Probably,” laughed Connor. “But there’s one part of this that’s not finished. We need to find out about dad. Can you back me up one more time?”

  Bartholomew smiled. “I need to know too.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  Bartholomew laughed, pointed at his arm in the sling, and the bandage around his shoulder. “I don’t have much of a punch, but I have to find out.”

  A nurse with short black hair came in with a young helper and instructed the trainee how to support Bartholomew as he got out of bed, and how to dress him. As the nurse was buttoning up his shirt, the doctor walked in and instructed Bartholomew about his condition and meds.

  ***

  LA traffic was normal. The 405 N. was a parking lot, and it took them more than two hours to reach the motel in Gorman. Connor knew that Bart was drugged up because he didn’t once complain about his old car.

  Gravel crunched beneath the Mustang’s tires as he drove across the parking lot and parked close to the reception sign.

  “For good or bad,” said Connor. “I need to know what happened.”

  Bartholomew looked a
t him for a moment without speaking, then turned away and said: “Yeah brother, same here.”

  They rented room number 12, took the key from the Formica counter, where the old guy dropped it, crossed the parking lot, and stepped into the room.

  “I got to sit down.” Bartholomew moved to the bed.

  “We shouldn’t have to wait long. Redmond’s goons were right behind us on the way up.”

  “Don’t you want a 9 mm in your hand when they bust in?”

  “No, I got this thing figured out. I think I know what happened that night. If I’m right, the people that were involved are not going to let the Russians interfere.”

  “Don’t take chances with our lives.”

  Connor sat on the bed beside Bartholomew. In less than half an hour the door opened and the ugly guy with the machete was standing there, his no neck buddy beside him, both wearing a sickly little smirk.

  “Sure enough, just like Redmond said, if we followed you long enough, you’d lead us right to it.”

  The big no neck rushed over and cracked Connor across the chin, knocking him to the floor.

  His counterpart with the machete raised the weapon and stepped into the room. “I take Mr. Boxer’s legs first, so I can hear him scream.”

  The big guy with the machete had hardly finished speaking when something hit him from behind. He choked and looked like he was going to vomit as he fell to his knees.

  When no neck number two saw his buddy with the machete fall, he turned to attack, but was greeted by three old guys carrying automatic weapons. The trio pushed through the doorway and closed the door behind them.

  “Don’t try it, Ivan,” said Artie, pressing an automatic against the Russian’s cheek. “I’ll blow your fucking head back to the motherland.”

  Artie’s men handcuffed the Russians and shoved them to the floor. The machete guy tried to climb to his feet. One of Artie’s men stomped on the Russian’s ankle. The guy shouted and fell to the floor.

  “Well,” said Artie, lowering his weapon and looking around the room. “Here I am again. I tried to scare you guys away, but I guess I knew we’d end up here. I promised your old man back in the day that I’d watch out for you two mugs, and that’s what I’m doing now. I know you’re probably thinking that the evil cops got your dad wrapped up in something, right?”