Cut Out

by Bob Mayer

  Hammer was intrigued. “Where?”

  Riley smiled grimly. “You’ll see.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  CHICAGO

  31 OCTOBER, 1:10 p.m.

  The young flunky in the three-piece suit was not impressed with Giannini’s police ID or her rumpled appearance. “Captain Donnelly normally requires people to have appointments to see her. She’s a very busy person,” the young man added, snapping open a file folder.

  Giannini glanced past him at the door with Donnelly’s name on it, then back at him. “This isn’t a normal situation.”

  “I suppose it might not be, but since you won’t tell me what it is, I really can’t—”

  Giannini didn’t let him complete the sentence. “You go to your boss and you whisper in her ear the name Philip Cobb.”

  The young man looked startled for the first time. He got up and disappeared. In thirty seconds he was back with the district supervisor for the Federal Witness Protection Program. Donnelly towered over both of them in her high heels. She extended a hand to Giannini. “Chris Donnelly.”

  “Donna Giannini, Metro Homicide.”

  Donnelly gestured toward her office. “Why don’t we go inside and talk?” She led the way, shutting the door behind Giannini. The office was on the eighteenth floor and had a superb view of downtown Chicago. An L-shaped desk dominated one side, the front portion empty except for a neat stack of file folders. A computer, screen glowing, sat on the short side of the L along with three phones.

  “I think I work for the wrong people,” Giannini commented, taking in the office.

  “Working for the federal government does have its advantages,” Donnelly admitted. She took her seat and steepled her fingers. “What about Philip Cobb?”

  Giannini was tired of sparring with people. “He’s dead.”

  Donnelly didn’t blink. “How do you know that?”

  “I got a phone call from his wife, who saw his body.”

  Without a word Donnelly turned to her computer and her fingers flew over the keys. After thirty seconds of tapping, she paused and waited. Finally she shook her head. “I’m afraid your information is wrong. I’m showing a green status on the Cobbs—both Philip and Lisa.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means both are alive and healthy and under no threat.” Donnelly turned from her computer. “So what kind of game are you playing, detective? I don’t appreciate people coming in here with stories.”

  Giannini was taken aback. She didn’t know for sure that Philip Cobb was dead; she only knew what Lisa had told Riley. She did know that Tom Volpe was dead, but that wasn’t information she felt like spreading to the feds right now. It was confusing enough; she needed to keep others out of the loop as much as possible. Could Lisa have been mistaken about Philip? And what did Lisa know about Philip’s hidden money that Nickie referred to? She wished she knew Lisa Cobb better. What was real here?

  Giannini tried a different approach. “What about Jill Fastone?”

  “Who?”

  “The woman who set up Philip Cobb with the Torrentinos. Her body was found here yesterday.”

  Donnelly shrugged. “I didn’t know that, and quite frankly I don’t care. Is that what you’re here for? To try and get a line on Philip Cobb for your investigation into Fastone’s murder? Is that why you’re giving me this story about Cobb being dead?” Donnelly stood. “You can leave now, and you can be sure I will be in contact with your superiors. The Witness Protection Program is a highly classified operation, and we don’t appreciate people trying to interfere. There are proper procedures to be followed if you desire information, and coming to my door and trying to trick me into releasing information is not one of them.”

  “Wait a second,” Giannini protested. “I’m not sure exactly what’s going on, but I was called by Lisa Cobb, and she said that her husband was dead and people were trying to kill her. She called me from North Carolina two nights ago.”

  For the first time Donnelly’s professional composure cracked slightly. “North Carolina? What did she say?”

  “She said someone had killed her husband and that they were trying to kill her,” Giannini repeated.

  “Who is ‘they’?”

  “She assumed it was the mob. Jill Fastone showed up at the motel where Lisa and her husband were.”

  “Where’s Mrs. Cobb now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?” Donnelly glanced over her shoulder at the computer screen for reassurance. “If something happened to the Cobbs, we’d know about it. They most certainly would not have a green status. And since you don’t know where Lisa Cobb is—that’s if your story has any truth to it—then I think you’re fishing for her location. I can save us both a whole lot of time by telling you that I don’t know where she is now and I can’t find out.”

  “I don’t need you to find out where she is,” Giannini said. “She’s with a friend of mine right now. As a matter of fact, what I want is to get her back in your program. My friend’s had some people take shots at him, and we’d all feel a lot better if you people had her in your protection.”

  “But she is under our protection,” Donnelly said, acting as if she were dealing with an idiot.

  “Can you double-check that? Who in the Program knows where she is?”

  “The district manager for whichever district picked up the Cobbs, and four people at our headquarters in Washington.” Donnelly turned to her keyboard one more time. After a minute she looked at Giannini. “I’ve double-checked as you requested and the information is the same— the Cobbs are alive and well.”

  Giannini stood abruptly. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”

  FORT BRAGG

  31 OCTOBER, 2:50 p.m.

  “Master here.”

  “Terminate the targets.”

  Master frowned. “I thought we—”

  “You aren’t paid to think. Do what I tell you. Immediately.”

  “I only have a surveillance team near them now. I’ll need some time to put together an assault team.”

  “Terminate now. Your surveillance team can do it. There will be a bonus.”

  The secure connection went dead. Master glanced at the analyst. “What’s the location of the target?”

  “Camp Mackall. Holding steady about a klick off this airstrip,” he said, pointing at a map.

  “What about our surveillance?”

  “Three kilometers away. Holding.”

  Master checked his watch. He could be out to Mackall in forty-five minutes. Why were they in such a rush to terminate all of a sudden? He called the surveillance team leader.

  CAMP MACKALL

  31 OCTOBER, 3:12 p.m.

  Lisa was still in the back of the Camaro wrapped in guilt and sorrow beneath the poncho liner. Hammer was seated on the tailgate of his pickup truck, whittling away at a stick. Riley took another sip of the coffee he had just made and glanced about. The sun was a quarter way down in the western sky, glinting through the pine trees surrounding their hiding place in the depression. He slung the converted MP-5 over his shoulder and put down the canteen cup.

  “I’m going to take a look around.”

  Hammer nodded, his knife not missing a slice.

  Riley moved out of the depression along the way they had driven in, walking slowly, taking the opportunity to be by himself and try to clear his head of all the contradictory and confusing events of the past two days. He sincerely hoped that Donna could come up with something. He planned on driving by himself to Camp Mackall just after dark and calling her from one of the pay phones there.

  Riley reached the spot where the dirt road opened onto the edge of the airstrip and turned right, skirting the tree line. He paused as he heard the faint mutter of an engine. Climbing a nearby tree, he peered out over the airstrip. A van with darkened windows was rolling slowly along the dirt road on the near side of the clearing, coming closer to Riley’s position. There was no Fort Bragg stick
er on the windshield, but Riley knew that didn’t mean much, because many civilians drove through the open reservation. He was more interested in the four antennae poking out of the roof. Subtracting one for the van radio and one for a car phone, that still left two extra.

  The van slowed as it drove past Riley and then stopped at the trail junction where Riley had just come out. The side door slid open and two men stepped out. They wore wraparound sunglasses and long, dark brown raincoats. Most alarming to Riley, though, was that they sported French-made FA-MAS assault rifles with laser sights on top and silencers on the end of the incredibly short barrels. They moved smoothly and silently from the van down the trail, covering across each other’s front.

  Riley let them get out of sight and then swiftly climbed down from the tree. He poked his head in the van, muzzle of the MP-5 leading— it was empty. He then quickly traced the steps of the two men. When he caught a glimpse of them, fifty meters ahead, he ducked into the concealment of the trees. The two were focused on what lay ahead of them. Riley silently made up ground, moving through the trees like a wraith, closing to within twenty yards. Then ten. Five.

  One of the men paused, head cocked, some sense alerting him, and Riley committed himself, sprinting forward. He smashed the folding stock of the submachine gun into the head of the man on the left, dropping him. As the man on the right was wheeling around, bringing his weapon to bear, Riley swung the MP-5 by its barrel. The stock hooked under the barrel of the FA-MAS, ripping it out of the man’s hands. The shock of the impact tore the MP-5 out of Riley’s hand, and both weapons flew off into the brush.

  The man glared at Riley, hand half reaching for the pistol in his shoulder holster; then he paused, seeing Riley’s hand frozen in the same position. Abandoning that effort, the man leaped forward, lifting his right knee as if to kick, and then just as swiftly snapping his left foot out in a front kick directed toward Riley’s face. It was a basic feint and move, which Riley had seen thousands of times in the dojo. He reacted instinctively, moving to his right, out of range of the kick, and snapping a turn kick into the man’s midsection with his right leg, using the man’s momentum to double the effect of the kick.

  The man’s breath exploded out of his lungs as he doubled over, but he continued the movement and rolled, coming to his feet and spinning around, the raincoat flying open. Riley didn’t wait for his opponent to get set; he fired off a left turn kick in the direction of the man’s face, which missed. Riley continued with the vector of the kick and spun, right arm extended, smashing a back fist into the side of the man’s head. Riley grabbed the dazed man’s hair with both hands and pulled his entire body down, slamming his knee into the man’s chest. Riley repeated the movement four times, feeling ribs snap under the pounding of his knee.

  Riley saw a red dot waver unsteadily across the man’s back, then disappear. He whirled, keeping his hold on the man, and the burst of rounds ripped into the hapless man’s back, the silencer on the FA-MAS making a whisper of noise. Riley fell to the ground, the body still between him and the gunman, the raincoat half wrapped around his own body.

  Ten feet away, the first man shook his head, trying to get a clear picture of the target. Blood streamed down over his face from the wound caused by Riley’s butt stroke. The man fired a second burst, the rounds again tearing into the human shield Riley kept between them.

  Maintaining his hold with his right hand, Riley drew the High Standard .22 from inside his shirt and fired, his bullets passing through the man’s third burst. Firing as fast as he could pull the trigger, Riley saw that his rounds were having no effect even though they were hitting center of mass in the chest. He raised the barrel slightly and put the next four rounds into the man’s head, one of the bullets splattering the left eye and killing him.

  Riley dropped the bloody shield and got slowly to his feet. He ripped open the man’s raincoat. Sheets of Kevlar body armor were attached with Velcro to the inside of the raincoat, which explained why the bullets hadn’t gone through the body and hit Riley. He searched for a pulse and felt a faint one. Despite the armor, one of the rounds had torn through the man’s neck, and blood was spurting out—an arterial wound. Riley took a deep breath, then slammed the edge of his right hand into the man’s neck, crushing the cartilage. With a brief gurgle and a froth of blood at his lips, the man died.

  Riley sank back on his haunches for a minute, motionless. Then he moved, searching the bodies for any sort of identification, finding nothing. There was no sign of who they were or where they were from.

  Leaving the bodies, Riley ran back down the road to the van and climbed inside. He scanned the interior, searching for anything that might be useful. The entire left wall was crammed with electronic equipment. Riley recognized some of the devices; others were quite foreign to him. He spotted a small glowing screen with an acetate overlay of a map of the immediate area. A small bright dot showed on the screen, slightly off center. There were no documents inside the van.

  Riley took a portable phone from its charger next to the driver’s seat and stuck it in his thigh pocket. He grabbed a small backpack and loaded it with magazines for the FA-MAS rifles from an open foot-locker. Then he left the van and returned to the bodies, secured both rifles along with his MP-5, and made his way back to the depression.

  Hammer was still seated on his pickup, whittling, and Lisa was asleep in the back of the Camaro. Hammer glanced up at the two weapons in Riley’s hands; he looked past him, then back. “What happened?”

  “We had some visitors.”

  Hammer sprang to his feet and caught the FA-MAS Riley tossed to him, followed by three full magazines.

  “Time for a little upgrade in firepower.” Riley went over to the Camaro, got down on his knees, and looked under the front bumper.

  “What happened to the visitors?” Hammer asked.

  “They’re about a hundred meters thataway.” Riley pointed. “Both dead. Their van is at the edge of the airstrip.”

  Hammer fingered the bullpup automatic. “Pretty fancy hardware.” He watched Riley carefully. “What are you doing?” he asked as Riley moved around the side of the car, looking underneath.

  “They tracked us here electronically. The only time I figure they could have put a bug on me was when I left the car in the parking lot outside the ACFAC.” Riley glanced up. “Unless of course they bugged your car, but I don’t see how they could have done that.” He reached underneath the right wheel well and felt around. “Here we go,” he said, pulling out a small black plastic box with a three-inch wire antenna. He put it on the ground and smashed it. “Time to get out of here.” He glanced in the back window of the car—Lisa was still asleep. “We need to leave the car at the compound so the sergeant major doesn’t get in trouble, then we’ll use your truck to move out.”

  “To where?” Hammer asked.

  “We’ll hole up in the woods until tonight, then I’ve arranged further transportation.” He jerked a thumb at the car. “Don’t tell her about our visitors—she’s got enough shit to deal with right now.”

  Hammer nodded.

  Riley walked over to Hammer’s pickup truck and sat down on the tailgate for a second. Hammer was cleaning up the area, loading the gear. He glanced over at Riley, who still hadn’t moved. “You all right?”

  Riley lifted his hands and looked at them as if they weren’t even part of him. They shook slightly. His gaze was directed at the hands but his eyes didn’t seem to be seeing them.

  Hammer frowned. “Hey, Chief, you okay?” He walked over and laid a massive paw on Riley’s shoulder. “Listen, partner, we got to get out of here.”

  Riley’s eyes refocused and he stared at Hammer, then nodded slowly. “Right.”

  Hammer finished his sweep of the area. “You say you left their van on the edge of the airstrip?”

  Riley nodded.

  “I’m going to move it under some cover. Might give us a bit more time when whoever they work for comes looking for their people. Then we clear
out.”

  Riley nodded, his mind elsewhere. Hammer jogged out of the clearing toward the airstrip.

  CHICAGO

  31 OCTOBER, 2:43 p.m.

  Giannini spotted the tail within two blocks of leaving Donnelly’s office. Two men in a black El Camino. Whoever they were, they weren’t very good. They ran a red light amid a cacophony of car horns in order to keep her in sight.

  The key question she asked herself was whether she’d been tailed to the meeting with Donnelly or whether the tail had started there. The answer to that question was critical, especially in light of the information Donnelly had just given her.

  Giannini glanced down at the steering wheel as she drove up State Street, the El Camino four cars back. Her knuckles were white, and she could feel a small bead of sweat trickle down her back. She was scared, and she knew she had good reason to be. Five hundred thousand dollars worth of scared—besides messing with someone who had enough influence to fool with the Witness Protection Program’s computers.

  She considered simply going to police headquarters, but that might be jumping out of the proverbial frying pan into the fire. She wondered how much Guyton knew about the case that he hadn’t told her. If the mob was offering five hundred grand for Philip Cobb that meant that whatever he had hidden was undoubtedly a considerably larger amount—Louis had said a couple of million. She’d known good cops who went bad over a lot less. This thing was much bigger than she was, and she felt very alone and exposed. She braked at a light and glanced back. The tail was now two cars back.

  Giannini made up her mind. She worked her way out of the Loop toward the south side of Chicago. After fifteen minutes she ended up in a less-populated area of warehouses. The tail was very conspicuous now, which led Giannini to believe that whoever was following her either didn’t care that they had been spotted or were so bad they didn’t realize it.

  She suddenly spun the wheel hard left, turning into a narrow street, and then immediately slammed on the brakes. The street was deserted— a connector alley between two larger roads. It was lined with dumpsters and wooden pallets—the debris from the backs of the stores in the buildings on either side. Giannini leaped out of the car, drew her revolver, and waited. The nose of the El Camino appeared around the corner twenty feet away. The driver stopped quickly when he realized he had gone too far in to back out easily.