Crash

by David Hagberg

  The odors of grease and of unwashed male bodies were nearly overpowering, and Cassy gagged.

  One of the men at the table laughed. “I don’t think she’s going to like Mikhail’s cooking,” he said.

  The others laughed too.

  “Maybe I’ll have to give her something else to eat,” the man at the stove said.

  “Do you want something to eat or drink?” Anosov asked.

  Cassy shook her head, unable to speak.

  “I’m taking our guest to the attic room, and until I give the word, it’s hands off, gospoda,” Anosov said. “Am I clear?”

  Another man appeared at the door across the kitchen, and he pulled up short, his eyes all over Cassy. He grinned. “Nice merchandise,” he said. He was tall and on the slender side, a pistol stuck in his belt.

  “Am I clear?” Anosov repeated.

  “Yes, sir,” everyone responded, obviously not liking it.

  “Just relax,” Anosov said. “We have the rest of this day and all night, so you’ll get your chance.”

  His grip still tight on Cassy’s arm, he led her across the room, brushing the man at the door aside. They went back through what was a dining room with a long table that could easily seat a dozen, and then into the living room with a lot of overstuffed furniture and out into the front stair hall.

  All the windows in the front of the house were covered by heavy drapes, only a small amount of light coming from the outside, completely blocking anyone from seeing what was happening in here, and Cassy’s despair deepened.

  A chair and a side table with a half-full ashtray, a couple of Russian-language magazines, and a cell phone were set up in a corner of the stair hall. The man who’d opened the gate for them was the rear-door guard, and the man with the gun who’d come into the kitchen was the front-door guard. The place was a fortress.

  She didn’t resist as they went upstairs, but Anosov never let go of her arm.

  A half dozen doors opened off the corridor that ran the length of the second floor, at the far end of which was a bathroom, its door open.

  Halfway down the hall, Anosov reached up and pulled a cord that lowered a set of folding stairs, the spring twanging.

  “Up the stairs,” Anosov said, and Cassy climbed up on all fours into an attic, with rough boards for a floor and open roof beams that sloped down to the eaves. At the front a small window let in some light, while at the other end a room that looked like a large closet or storage space with a thick door had been constructed on one side.

  As Anosov came up the stairs, Cassy had a wild thought that she should kick him in the face, and then somehow make her way down to the front door and make her escape.

  But she stepped back instead, and Anosov joined her.

  “You missed an opportunity just now,” he said. “Too bad.”

  “What do you want with me?”

  “The flash drive you stole from your bank.”

  “I told you that I gave it to Ms. O’Connell. She’s my boss. You can check with her.”

  “First I’ll search you, just to make sure.”

  Cassy spread her arms. “Be my guest, you fucking pig.”

  Anosov laughed, then took her arm and led her to the door at the rear of the attic, where he undid the latch and opened it.

  The room was small, less than ten feet on a side with the sharply sloping roof beams on the left, beneath which was a narrow cot with only a rough blanket and a dirty pillow. A portable plastic toilet, like campers used, was set up in the opposite corner. There were no lights nor a window. With the door closed it would be like sleeping in a coffin, and Cassy had to shudder.

  “Take your clothes off,” Anosov said, letting her go when they were inside.

  “Are you going to rape me?” Cassy demanded, her voice a lot stronger than she felt.

  “Later. Right now I want to see if you have the flash drive.”

  Cassy hesitated for a moment. She was frightened and angry.

  “Take your clothes off,” Anosov said.

  She took off her blouse and handed it to Anosov, who searched the pocket and the folds of the cloth before he tossed it aside. She took off her bra, and he checked it the same as he had the blouse.

  This was worse then she’d expected it would be. She was naked from the waist up, and she’d never felt more vulnerable in her life than right now.

  “Everything,” Anosov said.

  Cassy sat on the edge of the cot to take off her gray Sketchers sneakers, which she handed to Anosov, who checked them before tossing them on the floor.

  Then she stood up and took off her khaki trousers and her panties and tossed them to the Russian. “You got what you wanted, now get out of here and leave me alone.”

  “Not quite,” Anosov said, checking the trousers’ pockets before tossing them and the panties aside.

  “I’ve got nothing!” Cassy shrieked.

  “You were telling the truth, after all,” Anosov said. He left the room and closed the door, the sound of the latch going home loud.

  Cassy rolled over, her knees up to her chest, and she began to cry.

  * * *

  Downstairs, Anosov phoned Bykov. “She doesn’t have a flash drive.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Da,” he said.

  57

  Chip Faircloth drove Ben over to Joint Base Andrews. Once they’d presented their IDs and were cleared through the gate, he headed to the hangar where the Gulfstream’s two-man air force crew were warming up the VIP jet’s engines.

  “What the hell would the Russians want with Cassy?” Chip asked.

  “She’s been having some kind of an issue at work, and whatever it is she’s apparently carrying a flash drive with something on it.”

  “Industrial and technology secrets I can understand, but investment banking? Maybe the accounts of some heavy players they want to hack into.”

  “Could be one of their own, squirreling away money they want to keep from someone in the Kremlin.”

  “But they didn’t take her cell phone until she let you know that the Russians had New York plates and were taking her somewhere—Brighton Beach is the obvious guess. It’s a Russian enclave in Brooklyn. Of course you’ll go running to save her, and maybe that’s the real reason they took her. They want you.”

  Ben had thought the same thing. “W?” he said.

  “You’re the key player,” Chip said. “They grab you, and they think they’d have the ship.”

  Ben glanced at his friend. “I’m going to find out.”

  Chip nodded. “I almost pity the poor bastards,” he said. “But seriously, buddy, I can arrange to have some muscle back you up. A couple extra guns might come in handy.”

  “They’d just kill her and scatter,” Ben said. “I’m doing this one alone.”

  “Your call. But I’m better at intel than you are, so I’m riding up with you.”

  * * *

  The pilot was in the cockpit ready for takeoff when Ben and Chip Faircloth were hustled aboard and took their seats.

  Before they were buckled in, the first officer had closed and dogged the hatch. “You guys ready?”

  “Let’s go,” Chip said. “And let us know when I can use my laptop and cell phone.”

  “Give us about ten minutes to get to altitude,” the man said. His name tag read SCOTT. He looked like he was barely out of high school.

  They were rolling toward the taxiway before Scott even took his seat.

  “Replay what Cassy sent you before her phone went dead,” Chip said.

  Ben took out his phone and hit replay, and they listened as the Gulfstream was cleared for immediate takeoff and accelerated down the runway.

  Chip had powered up his laptop, and though he wasn’t on the internet yet, he could take notes.

  He jotted down the first three digits of the New York plate and transferred the photograph of the man who’d grabbed Cassy from Ben’s phone.

  There’ll be no trouble, Ms. Levin, if you wil
l come with me, the man in the photograph said.

  “Definitely Russian,” Chip said. “But wait, go back.”

  Ben backed up to just after Cassy had taken the photograph and the siren passed.

  “An ambulance,” Chip said. “Continue.”

  I don’t have the flash drive, Cassy said. I left it with my boss.

  Cars were passing, and what sounded like a truck rumbled by.

  You son of a bitch, Cassy screamed. Help me! Help!

  We’re going to the precinct station.

  “He’s no cop,” Ben said.

  “Maybe not. But it’s something we can check,” Chip told him.

  Less than ninety seconds later the sounds changed, and a car door opened.

  I understand that you’re kidnapping me, Cassy said. But why, for Christ’s sake? I don’t have any money.

  Moments later the car door shut.

  You might as well let me go, and you can tell Butch Hardy for me that he’s a fucking idiot, and I quit as of right now.

  Yeb vas! Det telefon!

  Bastard! Cassy shouted, and the signal ended.

  “Play it again, from the beginning,” Chip said.

  Ben did, and Chip took a few more notes until it ended. “Definitely Russians, and they are almost certainly taking her somewhere in Brighton Beach. Finding them, let alone digging them out, won’t be easy.”

  “If we go in, sirens blaring, they’ll just kill her and get rid of the body,” Ben said. “I’m doing this alone.”

  “I agree. But not until we come up with some decent intel for you. Brighton Beach may not be that big, but two guys hunkered down with one woman somewhere will be like looking for a needle in the proverbial haystack.”

  “So we change the odds.”

  “First, who is Butch Hardy?”

  “I think he’s chief of security for Burnham Pike, the bank she works at.”

  “She mentioned giving a flash drive to her boss. Maybe we can start there.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m not sure, except that she was having trouble at work, and it was really getting to her. If she was afraid that the bank’s chief of security had ordered her kidnapping, and his priority was getting a flash drive Cassy supposedly had on her, asking for their help could make things worse.”

  “Okay, flash drive means computer information,” Chip said. “You’ve said that she works for the bank’s cybersecurity division. So she might have found out something she wasn’t supposed to find out, copied it on the flash drive, and was trying to get away without being caught. So where was she going?”

  “She was heading south on Nassau,” Ben said.

  “Inside the Financial District. Does she know anyone outside of Burnham Pike? Someone working at another bank?”

  “She told me once that her folks were friends with the woman who’s now the president of the New York Stock Exchange.”

  “That’s where she was going,” Chip said. “We have something to work on now.”

  “No cops,” Ben said.

  “I hear you, my friend.”

  “Good.”

  “But if you want me to back off, forget about it.”

  “Intel, Chip, nothing more.”

  Chip started to protest, but Ben held him off.

  “This will get real ugly real fast, and I won’t be reading anyone their rights. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Chip took a moment or two before he answered. “The Russian mob never works alone. The odds will be against you. And all it takes is one lucky shot.”

  “I’m not talking about just the Russians.”

  58

  Eight minutes from takeoff, they were climbing above ten thousand feet and had turned northeast toward New York City when the copilot turned around in his right seat. “You guys are good to go,” he called back.

  Chip connected with the internet and began his search while Ben replayed Cassy’s frantic phone call one more time. When he was finished, he brought up the photograph of the Russian kidnapper.

  He stared into the man’s eyes for a long time, his anger barely below the surface. Whatever happened before, starting at this instant in time the Russian was a walking dead man.

  59

  Heather was relentless and so wild she was nearly out of control, and at one point in their lovemaking for the second time, Treadwell was nearing some limit he’d never known existed.

  When they finally parted, he rolled over on his back and tried to catch his breath. “Jesus Christ,” he mumbled.

  Heather laughed. “Is that good or bad?”

  Treadwell had to laugh too. “Better than good, but you damned near killed me.”

  “I think I scratched your back. Maybe even drew some blood.”

  “I’m not a bit surprised,” Treadwell said. “But seriously, you need to stick around town for a while.”

  “Our stock is going to hell, just like the market, so I might as well stay here to see how it pans out.”

  In the morning she, along with a lot of other stupid bastards, weren’t going to be so happy at how things turned out. Except for the investors BP serviced. They’d be calling him the savior. The miracle worker. The God almighty of the market.

  Heather poked him in the side. “Hey, earth to Reid,” she said. “Where’d you just go?”

  “Sorry. A lot going on today.”

  “You get laid twice, and you forgot me already?”

  He rolled over and kissed her. “A thousand apologies. Won’t happen again, promise. By tomorrow I’ll be a different man.”

  She kissed him back, then drew away, a mysterious look on her face. “You have a virus in your system and a person named Levin has the antidote on a flash drive, right?” she said. “You were reading the riot act to someone named Julia—I’m guessing she’s your head of IT, the one on the exchange floor this morning. And she talked to Betty Ladd, who Daddy and I met. And Betty hates you. And you threatened Julia with Butch’s pals paying her a visit if she didn’t keep her mouth shut. Would that be Butch Hardy, your chief of security?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  She propped herself up on an elbow. “I’m sure it is. But from where I was sitting in the cheap seats, you sounded like a gangster.”

  Treadwell grinned. “Macho Wall Street bullshit.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “We’re in the middle of something pretty delicate. Something I can’t talk about just now. Understand?”

  “The bathroom door was open, and I heard just about everything. You were pissed off big-time. Sounds more than delicate to me.”

  His cell phone buzzed, indicating an incoming text. He got it from the nightstand and opened the message. It was from Butch, and the news wasn’t good. Send my car, he texted back.

  “Bad news?” Heather asked.

  “No, just difficult,” Treadwell said, and he got out of bed. “Sorry, but I gotta go.”

  “You said that you’re on the brink of—what’d you call it? ‘The biggest financial coup in history’? So tell me about it, I can keep my mouth shut.”

  “I wish I could, really. But it involves a client, and sharing that kind of information with anyone is strictly a no-no.”

  “I can help you, Reid, and I think you know it,” Heather said. “Let me in.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Treadwell said. He gathered his clothes off the floor and headed for the bathroom.

  “With the right incentive, maybe I won’t keep my mouth shut after all. Betty Ladd seemed like a genuine person.”

  Treadwell stopped and turned back to her. “That would be the biggest mistake of your life. Trust me on that one.”

  She just looked at him with a half smile.

  In the bathroom with the door closed, he splashed some water on his face, gargled with mouthwash, and then got dressed. But it was only when he was finished that he realized he’d left his cell phone on the nightstand.

  “Son of a bitch,” he
said half under his breath and he went out to find Heather sitting on the edge of the bed, his cell phone in hand. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  She turned and looked up at him, this time her smile broad. “Hardy says Levin is gone and the kid is missing. What’s it mean?”

  “Wall Street shorthand to keep snoopy people like you in the dark.”

  “I do my homework too, Reid. Hardy isn’t one of your financial whiz kids. He’s a thug. An ex-cop with a questionable record.”

  Treadwell took the phone from her. “A word of advice: Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it, and it won’t be something you wanted after all.”

  60

  An armored black Mercedes SUV was waiting outside the apartment building on Rector Street when Treadwell charged out the front door. He climbed in the back before the driver could get out and open the door for him.

  “Let’s go now,” Treadwell said.

  He could have walked, but this was faster and a lot more secure. From time to time a disgruntled investor would accost him on the street, but Butch always had someone covering his back, and the problem would be immediately solved.

  They headed away, but as Treadwell was putting his tie on he realized that they were going in the wrong direction. “I want to go to the office.”

  “Yes, sir, but I’m taking a detour. There’s a traffic tie-up on Broadway, and it’s blocked off.”

  In less than five minutes they pulled up in front of the Burnham Pike tower, and Treadwell climbed out of the car and bolted across the sidewalk. Once inside, however, he slowed down and, head high, marched to the executive elevator, conscious that the security staff and others in the lobby were watching him as they did every day he came in. So goes Treadwell’s mood, good or bad, so goes the day.

  Upstairs, Dammerman and Hardy were waiting for him, and they looked grim.

  Treadwell charged past them and into the reception area of his office, where Ashley looked up.

  “Hold all calls?” she asked.

  “Right,” Treadwell said without stopping. “But get O’Connell here now.”

  “Yes, sir.”