Her hearing muffled, Lauren saw Jorge shouting, firing out of the doorway. Lauren yanked Jessica’s arm, ready to run now. Return blasts ricocheted wildly around the room. Jorge lurched backward, his hands flying up and his gun firing wildly as he fell.
***
Within the cacophony of families flowing outward, Emily paused before she passed through the metal detectors that would lead her to the Family Court’s lobby and outside. There was no sign of fire or smoke. No way this could be a fire drill or a real bomb threat. Her mother must have told Arena about getting the key from Emily, and now Emily was leaving the courthouse and its metal detectors. Armed men could be waiting for her outside. She had no idea what to do.
Court officers on megaphones urged the crowd on, “Please exit the building. Keep it moving.”
Emily breathed in harsh air, realizing she wasn’t safe from weapons inside the courthouse anyway. The officers had disarmed the metal detectors. Otherwise, they would have been ringing now that everyone was exiting through them. She allowed herself to be herded along by the crowd.
On the wide plaza in front of the court, people milled, a kaleidoscope of movement and conversations. Griping mothers formed ragged semicircles around the court officers demanding to know what had happened that was delaying their cases. Emily thought of going to one of the officers but knew they wouldn’t take the time to listen to her now. People streamed across the street to wait in a pocket park until they received the all clear to return. Cars honked, trying to get through the jay-walking crowd.
Two large men moved into the families that filled the sidewalk instead of walking around on the curb. Emily spotted the men scanning faces. She groaned, her heart exploding in her chest. They didn’t belong in Family Court. They had to be looking for her.
Someone grabbed her from behind. Her breath whooshed out of her.
Next to her ear, a man’s voice: “Don’t say a word.” He pulled her backward, behind a column.
“Tabu?!”
***
Lauren and Jessica stopped short, still several steps from the window. The building went starkly silent, leaving a buzz in Lauren’s ears. A man stood in the burnt doorway. In a blur of speed, he and a group of men, five in all, ran into the empty apartment. Asian men, wiry and fit. They strode in, shouting, guns trained on the women and Pedro. “Hands up, hands up.”
Jorge was dead, and Pedro lay groaning on the floor, his pants turning maroon with blood. The new arrivals roughly frisked Pedro where he lay, checking his clothes and turning him from side to side to make sure he didn’t have a gun under him. Two others grabbed Lauren and Jessica and ran their palms up and down their bodies, checking them for guns, too. Lauren fought back panic.
The leader, with a black-stubbled head and dressed in a stretchy cross between a sweat suit and evening wear, crouched near Pedro. The other men looked around, stone-faced, dangerously scared. The leader pointed to two of his men and, speaking to them in Chinese, waved them away toward the lobby, probably to keep watch.
Pedro moaned, his eyes slits. The leader crouched and put a hand on the scattered documents next to Pedro. He looked up with a grin at his friends and said in English, “Dudes, holy shit, yeah.”
He picked one up and read it. He read a couple more and spoke excitedly in Chinese to his friends. His grin disappeared, and he waved his gun at the women and spoke to them for the first time. “We need to get out of here fast. Cooperate, and we will all be getting out, us first. Lie down. On your stomachs with your hands behind your heads.”
The women didn’t move fast enough.
He shouted, “Now!”
“Wait, please,” Lauren put up her palm. She knew what happened when people lined up facedown on the floor. For the first time in this whole ordeal, she thought she was about to die. She pictured Emily. Alone. Things could not end this way. She could not leave Emily alone in the world. “Wait, please. I have a daughter. We both have young children.”
Jessica looked at Lauren, her eyes opening wide as she caught on to what Lauren was saying.
“I’ll do anything. We’ll come with you,” Lauren said, even though she knew these men would kill them no matter what if they didn’t want witnesses. All she could do was buy time. “Please.”
The leader gave Lauren a long look.
***
Tabu wore a black hoodie and sweats, his face unshaven. A gust of wind billowed his hood, and Emily could see how stressed he was. He’d been running. He was still breathing hard.
“This way,” he told Emily, grabbing her hand.
They squeezed past the families who continued to exit the Family Court and slipped back inside the building. In the confusion, no one stopped them from threading their way through the muted metal detectors, past the elevators, toward the back of the courthouse. Tabu led Emily to a metal door and out into a cobblestoned alleyway between the back of the Family Court and another brick building.
“I smoked back here when I was your age.” Tabu brought Emily behind an office-supply truck parked there, his breathing normal now. “I came to Family Court a lot.”
Emily shivered with pent-up terror. “What are you doing here?”
“You didn’t dump the burner phone like you promised,” Tabu said. “I’ve been tracking you.”
“I’m sorry. I forgot.”
“But you know your father wasn’t just a lawyer.”
Emily nodded, wide-eyed.
“I didn’t keep my promise either,” Tabu said. “While I was in your father’s computer, I looked around. What I saw made me worry about you. Your father took a sick plunge when he got involved with Jorge Arena. Arena is all over the dark web … but fuck him, I have the home-court advantage there. His people called in the bomb threat that emptied this bitch out,” he said, signaling to the courthouse. “When I realized you were here and they were on their way, I made it my business to beat them to you. Luckily, I was at work, not far from here.”
“I need to get to the FBI,” Emily said. “My mother …”
***
The FBI car came to a halt at the curb at Jessup Avenue. Ahead, Lucho followed behind a couple of his men, walking toward the entrance to a scaffolded building.
“That’s Lucho, let’s go,” Carl said.
“Yo, wait on the team.”
“Right.” Carl pulled out his nine-millimeter and ran from the car, not giving Rick time to stop him. He heard the faint rustle of Rick and other agents following.
It had been an hour since CB called. Carl didn’t want that perverted bastard, Lucho, in there with Lauren, and the chances of a shootout would be far greater if Lucho were trapped inside with Jorge’s men. Lucho would never let them surrender without a fight. They had to isolate him.
Lucho followed his men, who disappeared inside the building first. Lucho was halfway through the metal door when he checked behind him with a start. Carl sprinted over rubble toward him. Lucho began to draw his gun. But the movement of his arm stopped midway. Rapid gunfire from inside the building exploded in string-sentences. Bullets threw Lucho back against the door.
More gunfire, and Lucho hit the ground. A moment’s pause and two members of the Mott Street Tong came out of the building’s front door, jumping over Lucho, guns ready to meet whoever else had come with him.
Carl, joined by several FBI agents, shouted, “FBI! Drop your weapons!”
Carl saw the first flash of the Tong members’ guns at the same instant that he and his fellow agents began firing.
***
Lauren heard automatic gunfire and what sounded like a grenade beyond the apartment. The leader shouted in Chinese to his men while clutching Lauren’s attaché and stuffing fistfuls of bonds into it, some falling out. He didn’t take the time to grab the rest. Instead of joining the fight outside the apartment door, the men ran with the attaché and leaped one after the nex
t, a hand on the windowsill, out the window.
Lauren could see their backs receding as they sprinted toward the rear end of the building in the rubble-covered lot. She spoke to Jessica over the noise of the gunshots in the lobby. “We’ve got to get out of here.” She was sure now that they had to get away no matter how risky. They would die here if the shooters reached them.
The women moved toward the window again when the shooting abruptly stopped. Lauren looked back, gasping, the silence buzzing in her ears. They were too late. The new attacker appeared in the doorway. He stood, his gun trained on them. He had a deformed face, bruised and swollen. Lauren looked closer and froze.
In that split second, her eyes met Carl’s and she took in the letters F-B-I on his chest. She sucked in air and followed his gaze. He looked at the remaining bonds strewn across the floor. He looked to the open window.
In that instant, she could see pained indecision in his eyes.
***
Battle-charged adrenaline pumped through Carl. He looked at Lauren, the last few days flashing before him. His gut churned. He might as well have killed CB himself. He’d sacrificed everything—his marriage, his conscience—for the Job. Now this.
“Shit.” He gave the slightest motion with his forehead toward the window.
Lauren turned toward the window.
“Hold it!” Rick appeared from behind Carl, an assault rifle in his hands.
The women stopped short.
He looked at Carl, “Sorry, bro—I didn’t see that, not on my watch. Not on this crazy case.” Rick aimed his gun at Jessica and Lauren while he walked toward Jorge and stuck a toe in his side, feeling for life. Rick looked across the room, taking in the semiconscious Pedro and the remaining bearer bonds, scattered nearby. “Hands up, ladies, please. You’re under arrest.”
More agents ran in. Pedro groaned as they turned him over and cuffed him behind his back. A male and female FBI agent rushed to Jessica and Lauren.
Carl averted his eyes from Lauren. He pushed a button on his radio transmitter. “Command, we need an ambulance.”
Lauren and Jessica stood still, their hands in the air. Lauren heard clipped police sirens and distant shouting outside. The female agent spun Lauren around and shoved her to the wall. The man did the same to Jessica. The woman agent frisked them, her hands heavy and rough. Then the male agent wrenched their hands behind their backs and cuffed them.
“Let’s go, ladies,” the female agent said as she took Lauren and Jessica’s upper arms and guided them toward the door. “Time for your new life—courtesy of the United States government.”
CHAPTER 40
Thursday, November 28
The elderly federal judge looked down at Jessica and Lauren from his bench, which stood tall in a large, silent courtroom. Jessica still found it hard to believe that she, Jessica Silverman, had been arrested twice in one week. Unlike the New York criminal courthouse, polished mahogany and rich carpeting conveyed a sense of dignity to the federal courtroom that, unfortunately, didn’t extend to her, the accused. Jessica saw Lauren turning back and smiling encouragingly at Emily, the only person seated in the gallery. Emily had insisted on coming and now anxiously curled her thick hair into dreadlocks over one shoulder. Jessica was nervous, too. Lauren squeezed her hand as if she’d read her thoughts.
After days locked up in the Metropolitan Correction Center, Lauren and Jessica had gotten out on bail, using their homes as collateral. They spent most of the week after that in the US Attorney’s office for interrogation. The federal prosecutors had interrogated Emily for an entire day too. Thankfully, they didn’t arrest her when she’d arrived at Federal Plaza babbling hysterically about Arena holding her mother and stepmother captive.
In the couple of weeks since, life had returned to a semblance of normality. Lauren had gone back to work, and Emily and Jessica had gone back to their lives in Westchester. Emily had ceased complaining about it and even attended school every day. She’d foresworn the wild life, she said, and they were all grateful to have until school let out in June before Emily and Jessica had to vacate the house, not that Jessica could afford the mortgage beyond that date anyway.
The elderly judge cleared his throat. He scanned the participants: Lauren and Jessica, their tailored lawyers on either side of them, and two Assistant US Attorneys at the prosecution table. “Counselors, I understand that an agreement has been reached.”
The older of the US Attorneys spoke. “The United States has agreed to dismissal of all charges in the interest of justice based on the duress that led to the defendants’ participation, the substantial evidence that they had no knowledge of the true nature of the conspiracy, and their subsequent cooperation.”
Jessica and Lauren had nearly suffered nervous breakdowns when they learned they’d been charged with conspiracy to sell weapons. They were booked alongside Chinese gang members and Arena’s men who’d survived. The FBI had been wrong that Arena had planned to meet the Tong. The Tong had come there to rob Arena. If they’d been successful, Xi Wen might never have known it was them who had stolen his money, and Lauren and Jessica would surely have been dead.
“As part of the agreement,” the US Attorney continued, “Jessica Silverman will not oppose forfeiture of the marital residence, which was purchased with illegally secured gains.”
Brian had prepaid a lot more on the house’s mortgage than Jessica had known, over half a million dollars. The federal government was happy with how much money they were getting without a fight and, thankfully, didn’t go after Lauren’s apartment.
The judge wrote something, then looked up again. “Ms. Davis, I suppose it is superfluous to remind you … if you intend to remain a member of our profession, you should not appear before me again except as an attorney.”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Lauren replied.
“The cases against Jessica Silverman and Lauren Davis, docket numbers 18/10734 and 18/10735, are dismissed.”
“Yes,” Emily exclaimed from behind them.
Jessica let out a sigh of relief and hugged Lauren.
***
A cold, river wind blew across Centre Street. Jessica walked with Lauren and Emily through Greek-style courthouse columns and down wide stone steps. It was over. The FBI had won big. They’d intercepted the shipment of arms in Italy and twelve million dollars in bearer bonds. Jorge, Lucho, their bodyguards, and two Tong members had died, but Pedro had survived, and the FBI had caught the Tong members who’d taken the bonds. Pedro plea-bargained and turned state’s evidence. That meant there was no one among the Arenas left to retaliate against Jessica and Lauren for their cooperation. But it also meant there was no one for the women to testify against in exchange for their freedom.
It was Emily who saved them from going to jail, her and her friend, Tabu. He brought Emily safely from Family Court to the Federal Building entrance on Worth Street. Before leaving her there, he asked for two things: one, not to tell the Feds he’d been involved and, two, not to tell them about the safe-deposit box and six million dollars until she and her mother had lawyers. He asked her to trust him on this, and she did. So Jessica and Lauren were able to voluntarily offer the bonds to the Feds later. That deal had saved them from prison sentences.
Warm air rushed up from the subway station as the women descended the stairs. Jessica’s mind drifted. She had calls to make once she and Emily arrived home. She had to try to get out of the lease agreements for Brian’s plane, hangar, and car, or she’d have to file for bankruptcy. Legal fees for their estate attorneys were eating away at what was left of Brian’s money, and the FBI hadn’t left much of that. And without proof of a profit-sharing agreement between Brian and Steve, the estate attorneys weren’t offering any hope for a decent settlement.
Jessica looked over the side of the subway platform. “The train’s coming already. I’m going to get used to this when I move here. I’ll save a
lot of money when I get rid of my car.”
“Are you moving to our neighborhood?” Emily asked, still calling Washington Heights home, especially now that she’d be moving back in June. “There’s a dog run in Fort Tryon Park.”
“Maybe. It could be within my budget if I’m that far uptown. I don’t want a roommate, other than you when you sleep over. If I live nearby, you could walk over to babysit.”
Lauren took a long look at Jessica. “I think you’re starting to show.” She smirked. “Mostly on top.”
Jessica put her hand on her belly, already in love with the baby there.
“That’s why I’m applying to NYU,” Emily said. “I’m not going away to college. My sister will need me.”
“It could be a boy,” Lauren said.
“No way,” Emily said. “I’ve got a feeling about this.”
“Brian would have had a fit, can you imagine?” Jessica said. “I can hear the yelling in my head now. He would have said I did it on purpose.”
“Didn’t you?” Emily asked.
Jessica imitated Emily’s New York accent, “Get out.”
The train thundered into the station and they crammed into the car’s front corner, standing room only. Jessica leaned her back against the door of the engineer’s compartment. “So, this morning I was googling review courses for the medical school entrance exam.”
“Really?” Lauren said.
“I have all the science classes I need and I had good grades in college. If I’m careful, I’ll have enough money to stay home with the baby for its first year.”
“Her first year,” Emily said.
Jessica chuckled. “I’m sure I could carve out the time to study for the test. I could go to medical school the next year.” Feeling a surge of excitement that their legal troubles were behind them, Jessica reveled in her freedom to think about any future for herself and her baby now. “It would mean student loans … a crapload of student loans. That’s the main thing that worries me. But I always wanted to be a doctor, and if I could get through the last few weeks, I don’t see why I couldn’t get through medical school, pay back the loans, and raise a kid.”
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