by E Y Mak
The Depository
A Russell Woo Novel
EY Mak
Fuengirola Publishing
The Depository by E.Y. Mak
Published by Fuengirola Publishing
© 2019 Fuengirola Publishing. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by copyright law. For permissions contact [email protected].
Visit the author’s website at www.thedepositorynovel.com.
This is a work of fiction. This novel’s story and characters are fictitious. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Certain long-standing institutions, agencies, and public offices are mentioned, but the characters involved are wholly imaginary. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Style editing provided by Keith Morrill at Little City Editing (www.littlecityediting.com)
ISBN: 978-1-9990855-0-6
Digital ISBN: 978-1-9990855-1-3
Dedicated to my family.
Thank you to all those who helped me on this journey.
Prologue
Sometime in the 1990s—Staten Island
The tall, lean teenager closed the blinds on his bedroom window, shutting out the view of the city’s famous surveyor, the Guardian II. The giant rigid airship drifted high above the twin towers, silently observing the inhabitants of Manhattan and parts of the surrounding boroughs. From the teen’s vantage point, however, the airship’s flashing lights were nothing more than a blur in the distance, its colossal size reduced to a docile speck.
It’s time.
He pushed the button on his red Casio G-Shock. Midnight. It was the moment. When anticipation would give way to the act.
He took off the watch and looked around his bedroom. It was illuminated only by the dimly lit screen of the desktop computer on the table next to his bed. He powered it off and double-checked the items he would need for the night’s events.
The teenager laid out on the bed a hunting knife, a garrote wire, two zip ties, a pair of scissors, a pair of leather workman’s gloves, a gently folded sweater, khakis, and a pair of brown Timberlands. He picked up the black canvas backpack lying on the floor and opened the main compartment. He gently placed the sweater, khakis, and boots in the main compartment and the remainder into the front compartment. Then he slung the straps over his shoulders.
He peeked outside the bedroom window one last time. Seeing no one around, he walked out the bedroom door into the hallway and went quietly down the stairs. The front door opened without a sound. The door had squeaked for years, giving everyone else in the home notice of its use. He had been planning tonight’s events for years, and months ago had started a new regiment, judiciously greasing the hinges on every room of the house under the guise of being an obedient teenager. His exit went unnoticed.
Outside, the teen casually walked two houses over to where he had hidden his bike, away from the prying eyes of his overbearing mother. He had long ago scouted the hiding spot—the storage gap between the garages of two neighboring homes. He pushed the bike for twenty feet before mounting.
It was the darkest part of the night, and the island was quiet. He had observed the Guardian II’s smaller airship companions many times above this island, but none seemed to be out tonight. He cycled pensively. The smaller ships were known to float in the darkness, lights off and hidden, only to swoop down on a moment’s notice.
He rode for an hour, intentionally sticking to the small streets. At one point, he crossed a school clearing and once again saw the familiar Manhattan skyline in the distance. He pedaled purposefully, while still looking over his left shoulder towards downtown. He could see them, specks of light floating in the skyline, about a dozen, each representing the smaller airships. When preparing for this night, he had learned that these airships rotated in a predetermined pattern above the city. The paper had called it a “mesh network.” The airships overlapped in their coverage. If one had to leave to respond to an incident or for repairs, the pattern would shift to compensate. It was a marvel of technological prowess. But he had found a lapse in the pattern, a gap, and tonight he slipped into that empty space and smiled knowing he was not being watched from above.
After another couple blocks, the teenager approached where Hardy met Prince Street. He had been here numerous times in the last two weeks, making detours while running errands for his parents. He knew that the intersection was surrounded by older homes and illuminated only by streetlights on one side. There were no CCTV cameras to catch him at this odd time of night. The older homes had older cars parked in their driveways, not always functional, and a solitary bicyclist late in the evening would not raise any unnecessary attention.
He slowly but surely eased down his pedaling. The last time he was here, he had found a hiding spot for his bike—an empty parking lot overrun by tall grass. He dropped his bike in the lot, hidden from the street, and walked silently down the unlit side of the road, fully upright so as to not look suspicious. His destination was close by, the third from the end, a two-story house, with green stucco and white shutters and a solitary female occupant. The lights were out, but the second-floor window was open, as he had noted that it always was in the sweltering July heat.
The teen hopped the picket fence and climbed up the side of the house to the window. Nervous sweat dripped down his face as he climbed over the sill and into the house.
Three hours later, he exited through the front door. His face reflected his usual look of stoic disconnection. A robot, his mom had called him. He walked with an aggressive and purposeful stride, thinking “Mission Accomplished.”
He quickly made his way back to his attic undetected, within an hour of closing the gate on the picket fence. He gingerly walked over to his bed and put down his bag before glancing at his bedside alarm clock.
5:32 a.m.
He took off his clothes, shoved them into the bag and threw the bag into the closet. He couldn’t take a shower now; it would only wake up the rest of his family. Instead, he slipped into bed and tried to close his eyes to get some sleep.
Except he couldn’t. A million thoughts raced through his head. But he was already forgetting some of the actions that had occurred earlier that evening. Now was not the time to sleep. Something this important, something this monumental—had to be remembered. He needed to record every thought he had had today. He needed to document every last gasp and every cry. He needed to remember the feelings, the emotions, the pleasure, the anticipation. He needed to remember the thirty stab wounds he had left in her body.
He powered on his computer, sat down, and began writing.
Chapter One
Sometime in the 2010s—Manhattan, New York
Russell tightly held the upper arm of his client as he rushed the older man up the courtroom steps. Even though his client held a suit blazer over his head, dozens of news cameras flashed in an attempt to get a brief snapshot of the disgraced financier. Russell ignored the crowd and kept both of them moving. Keep calm and carry on, he thought.
His client, or rather, his firm’s client, was Mark Lawrence, the admitted operator of a Ponzi scheme considered to be the most massive financial fraud in US history. In the 1980s, Lawrence had kept his wealth management firm profitable, his reputation impeccable, and his bank account full by taking the funds paid by new clients to offset the significant losses that he had incurred bankrolling his extravagant lifestyle. The scheme unraveled in 2010 when his most recent estranged wife, and former secretary, put in a call to the Securities and Exchange Commission. His secret fell apart in days. Shortly afterward, he plead guilty to
thirteen federal felonies. Lawrence was now heading into the courthouse for a sentencing hearing that would determine how many years he’d still be in jail after he died.
Lawrence did not have many fans at the courthouse. The Phineas Detecting Agency had been hired for twenty-four seven protection before his incarceration, and Russell Woo was one of seven Phineas agents tasked with protection duty today.
“Burn in hell, Lawrence!” an elderly man screamed as they rushed by.
“Let’s keep moving,” Russell said, grasping Lawrence’s arm tighter than necessary. He didn’t like Lawrence very much either, but he had a job to do and orders to follow.
Russell approached the courthouse security checkpoint. As anticipated, the crowds were forced to thin out, mitigating the immediate threat of a concealed pistol or knife. All of the people in the vicinity were funneled into a line by two rope dividers. There were a dozen people already in line, probably lawyers and their clients, waiting for their turn.
Craig Harvey, Lawrence’s lawyer, had already crossed the checkpoint and was just inside the courthouse, writing on a yellow legal pad. The noise of the crowd caught his attention. He looked up briefly and nodded to Lawrence before refocusing on his legal pad. Russell tapped his left ear three times as he and Lawrence found their place at the back of the line, a signal to the two plain-clothes agents hidden discretely nearby to crowd in beside and behind him. So far, all according to plan.
Satisfied with the reduced threat, for now, Russell turned around and scanned the crowd behind him. Behind the Phineas agents, three men approached the line. All were dressed in suits and were eying the Phineas entourage. The lead man had his eyes narrowed and squarely locked on Lawrence, his right hand hidden in his blazer jacket. Russell motioned to the agent directly behind Lawrence, who immediately stepped forward to intercept the lead man.
“Sir, please stand back until we clear the line,” said Russell.
All three of the men stopped midstep and gave up a comfortable distance to the group. A look of confusion entered the previously suspicious face as his hand reappeared clenching a cell phone. Russell noticed Lawrence taking a deep breath as he wiped away the beads of sweat dripping down his forehead. Phineas had already disrupted two assassination attempts in the last three weeks. Lawrence had confided earlier to him that he actually looked forward to solitary incarceration.
The lineup moved forward, slowly but steadily, and each of the Phineas agents surrendered their weapons to the guards at the security checkpoint. Russell didn’t relish the thought of being unarmed, but firearms were not permitted in courthouses under New York law, even for private security. Russell was the last of his group to check his weapon. He stopped briefly at the checkpoint as the guards searched under his bulletproof vest.
Craig Harvey stepped forward and motioned towards the elevator. “We’re in Courtroom three-oh-three,” he said. He walked them the rest of the way to the elevator and pushed the call button. An empty elevator arrived, and they were quickly on their way up to the third floor. Right before the elevator door opened, one of the Phineas agents, Ricardo Hernandez, took a deep breath and said, to no one in particular, “Get ready.”
The Phineas agents exited the elevator first and formed a diamond around Lawrence as they walked down the third-floor hallway, with Bruce, the unit leader, in front of Lawrence, Ricardo to his right side, and Russell rounding out the back. The hall was roughly a hundred and fifty yards long from end to end. Of particular note were the Roman columns lining both sides, creating a multitude of opportunities for an ambush before they would be able to enter the courtroom. The hallway was populated by no less than two dozen people, most of whom were already gathered outside Courtroom 303 and holding professional camera gear and audio equipment. Six more men were clustered at the far end of the hallway, and two grey-hairs standing about fifty yards ahead of Russell’s group were locked deep in discussion. An elderly bailiff sat in a chair in front of the courtroom situated between Russell and Courtroom 303.
Seeing Lawrence and the Phineas group, the press cluster came rushing forward, cameras flashing and news cameras rolling. The Phineas group proceeded at a steady pace, bracing themselves like Spartans for the inevitable onslaught. The reporters were soon almost on top of the Phineas group, each blindly shouting their questions over Ricardo as he forcefully pushed forward.
“What do you expect to happen today?”
“Do you have a deal in place?”
“Do you feel any remorse?”
Craig and Lawrence were momentarily stopped from behind by the reporter from NBC News. Russell urged them forward, but Ricardo’s palm was suddenly in Russell’s chest. A surge of adrenaline rushed through Russell’s body as he spotted what Ricardo had already identified. The bailiff.
The elderly man had already drawn his firearm, safety off, and was walking towards the group. The unarmed Phineas agents formed a protective circle around Lawrence.
“Mark Lawrence. Privileged suits like you, taking money from the working class, you make me sick.”
Russell could see the bailiff’s hands were shaking, his eyes frantically blinking and darting around. A sign of nervousness. He had the look of a good, but defeated, man robbed of his life’s work by Lawrence’s crimes. He could be reasoned with if done carefully, but was still dangerous. He was a broken man with nothing to lose.
“STAND DOWN!” Ricardo bellowed at the bailiff.
Calm down, idiot, Russell thought. Ricardo was bringing too heavy-handed an approach to the situation. All of the Phineas agents were unarmed—Ricardo’s threat to stand down was no threat at all, and the bailiff knew it. They hadn’t even brought a knife to this gunfight. The shine from a dozen news cameras lit up the bailiff.
“Stealing money from the little guys, like, like us. I’m doing this for every working stiff in the co-co-country,” the bailiff said, stuttering nervously.
“PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPON!” Ricardo screamed again. Russell wondered why Bruce wasn’t trying to calm down Ricardo.
Russell sensed movement behind the bailiff moving towards the side of the hallway. But it was too late. The bailiff fired. Instinctively, and perhaps, stupidly, Russell launched himself over his client. He didn’t feel a thing before landing on the floor in front of Lawrence and Craig.
With the bailiff momentarily distracted, the two grey-hairs snuck up behind the shooter and tackled him to the floor. The shooter’s face turned a bright red as the two undercover agents placed their full weight on him. His ears still ringing from the gunfire, Russell could barely hear the struggle.
“This isn’t justice,” the bailiff said under his breath, tears streaming down his face.
With the threat subdued, Russell shook the cobwebs out of his head and quickly inspected himself. He hadn’t been hit.
He then turned to check on his client. Lawrence was lying in the corner near one of the Roman pillars. Ricardo was compressing a suit jacket into Lawrence’s chest. A crimson pool was forming beneath Lawrence and blood was spurting out of his gaping mouth. There was not much time left. But cameras flashed left and right, blinding and disorienting Russell. Through the hazy fog, he could see Lawrence’s face growing paler and the rhythm of his spasms slowing.
Russell took a deep breath and tried standing up, to no avail. Lawrence, the criminal, was gone. The assignment was a failure.
Weighing the gravity of his client’s crimes, Russell wondered whether he was fighting for the right side. He shook this feeling and quickly radioed for assistance.
Chapter Two
Three years later.
“Hired Goons,” said the Asian man at the podium.
Candice Pirelli sat at the front of the auditorium on the last day of training. The guest speaker, Russell Woo, was in his midthirties, about six two with short, close-cropped hair. He was impeccably dressed in a tailored dark-blue suit. He wore the uniform of an investment banker, with his white shirt and a black paisley tie peeking out from behind his jacket, and brow
n dress shoes with a matching belt. Candice noted an authoritative yet roguish air to his speech, as though he felt constrained from adding his own comedic touches to the company history lesson. She listened attentively.
The man continued: “Union Breakers. Mercenaries. You are going to hear a lot of this directed at you out in the field. Be ready for it but remember what we learned on day one here. Always remember the Phineas Creed.” Then he added, finally cracking a smile, “If you run into John Phineas in the hallway, he might ask you to recite it. So I’ll show it to you again.”
He clicked a button on the laptop set on top of the podium, advancing the slide projected onto the screen behind him:
“Phineas Creed:
Excellent: Be dedicated to excellence in everything you do.
Integrity: Honour your word and deliver on your promises. Never be corrupted. Do not compromise with criminality.
Communication: Listen attentively and ask questions. Always work with local law enforcement. Always keep your client updated.
Responsibility: Take responsibility for your actions. Do not make excuses or blame others when things go wrong. If we make a mistake, our first priority is to correct; our next priority is to ensure it does not happen again.
Service: We are privileged to be members of an honorable profession. Respect those that you work for and all that you encounter.
Always respect the law: Only contravene the law if absolutely necessary and to achieve some greater purpose or good.
The lecturer continued. “The Phineas Creed is the guiding principle of all of your actions when employed at Phineas. Whether you are representing Phineas in the field in an investigatory or protection role, providing intelligence to local law enforcement or advancing the world’s technology with cutting-edge research and development, always ensure that the Creed guides your actions for all to see. Perhaps even more important than having integrity is maintaining the appearance of integrity. Someone is always watching.”