Money to Burn

by James Grippando

  “What are you going to do with me?” asked Ivy.

  She was seated on the metal floor of the van, her back to the side panel. Her jaw felt slightly out of alignment from the left cross that Burn had delivered, and her ribs were still sore from the takedown to the pavement in the hospital parking lot. She worked at the plastic handcuffs that fastened her wrists behind her back, but there was no slack whatsoever.

  “What do you think I’m going to do?” said Burn.

  She knew his reputation, but she didn’t let her mind go there.

  “Let’s put it this way,” he said in an icy tone. “You will wish you really had been lost at sea and eaten by sharks.”

  Ivy was silent. There was nothing she could say. She should never have gone back toward the hospital in search of Michael. She should have kept running, just as she’d run for the past four years. In hindsight, seeing Michael face-to-face had probably been a mistake. Emotion had taken over, and even though splitting up outside the ER and heading off in opposite directions had been the correct tactical move, she’d doubled back in hope of finding him and escaping together. A silly romantic notion-and a complete blunder that had allowed Burn to capture her. And now he had hijacked her spyware as well. She wished now that she hadn’t given Michael her spare cell, though it had seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

  Suddenly, her mother’s voice was on the speaker. Olivia obviously had no idea that her words were being picked up by Michael’s cell and transmitted from the corporate dining room to Ivy’s phone a mile away.

  “We’d better get going,” Ivy heard her mother say.

  Burn also heard. “Let’s do what Mamma says,” he said to Ivy.

  One last time, Burn checked the tension on the cuffs behind Ivy’s back. Satisfied, he moved to the van’s cockpit, placed Ivy’s phone on the dash, and climbed behind the wheel.

  “We’ll see you all there,” he said as he turned the ignition.

  60

  “WE’RE ALL SET,” SAID WALD, AS HE TUCKED AWAY HIS CELL PHONE.

  He was seated beside his uncle in the cabin of a Eurocopter EC225 Super Puma helicopter. They’d just touched down on a helipad in Somerset County after a short flight from Manhattan that had reduced the famous skyline to a blur of lights on the horizon. The whir of the rotors was almost down to nothing, making it unnecessary to use headsets or even raise their voices when talking.

  “Very good,” said McVee.

  It was his nephew’s second update of the night. The first had been within minutes of the shoot-out at the hospital: Ivy Layton wasn’t dead, but her run had come to an end. Burn had her at his mercy and under his control, and the death van was en route to an appropriate disposal site. McVee had been just fine with that-until the surprise phone call from Michael Cantella’s brother: “Michael knows it’s you,” he’d told McVee, “and if anything happens to him, me, or anyone in our family, the FBI is going to be all over you.”

  Wald glanced out the window at the rising moon, then back at his uncle.

  “Are you sure about this?”

  McVee’s expression tightened. “There are two ways to read that call from Cantella’s brother. One, he’s already gone to the FBI. Or two, it was a threat. A very serious threat.”

  “I understand, but-”

  “No ‘buts,’” said McVee. “If he’s already gone to the FBI, there’s nothing we can do about it. But if it’s a threat, and if we back away from it, extortion is right around the corner. The first payment is never enough to keep a blackmailer from telling the police what he knows. They keep coming back, and the price tag is always higher the next time. In this case, it’ll just keep going up and up until it’s out of sight-especially when Cantella and his brother get a better understanding of exactly how much we stand to profit from credit default swaps after Saxton Silvers’ bankruptcy.”

  Wald smiled. “A cool bonus that taking care of Ivy Layton is so profitable.”

  Remarks like that made it so clear to McVee that his nephew could never lead Ploutus. The kid always had everything backward. “Getting rid of Ivy Layton is the bonus on top of the business, genius.”

  “Huh?”

  “Even before she was in the picture I had plans to short sell an investment bank into oblivion. Ivy’s showing up just made it that much easier to decide Saxton Silvers should be first on the list.”

  “How much do we stand to make?”

  “More than you can fathom,” said McVee, “and it’s none of your business. Your job is to deal with the threat.”

  “Well, we’re all set. I spoke directly to Burn. There’s been a temporary stay of execution for Ivy Layton. He is to use her as bait.”

  “There’s no compromising on this point. My gut tells me that Cantella and his brother haven’t gone to the FBI yet, and I’m not about to pay them hush money for the rest of my days. Burn has to be prepared to eliminate all of them.”

  “The mother, too?”

  “She’s no innocent. Ivy never would have gotten away without her help. And something tells me it was the mother who taught Ivy all her tricks in the first place.”

  “Understood,” said Wald. “All of them. I’ll tell him it’s ‘as per Michael Cantella,’” he added, referring to the infamous e-mail.

  McVee unbuckled his seat belt, then stopped before rising. “Did you work out a price?”

  “He said you two already came to an understanding when you went for a ride in the limo.”

  “What understanding?”

  “At first I thought he was making a joke,” said Wald, “but he was serious. Something about the new line on our balance sheet: Money to Burn.”

  McVee almost smiled, recalling the conversation and his own play on words. He took Burn’s meaning: this job would cost so much that McVee would have to pay it quarterly, maybe even in annual installments. But it would be worth it.

  “Fine,” said McVee. “Money to Burn it is.”

  61

  WE ENTERED THE HANGAR THROUGH THE MAINTENANCE OFFICE, AND Eric switched on the overhead lights.

  At the end of a long private access road from the corporate training center, the WhiteSands heliport was one of two dozen heliports in Somerset County and one of about 365 statewide. Not all were equipped for nighttime landings and takeoffs, and some were little more than open space in a flat field of grass. As would be expected, the private facility at WhiteSands was equipped with far more amenities than it needed, including five separate hangars, each one large enough to accommodate a medium-size helicopter. We entered Hangar No. 3, which housed our ticket to escape-a pimped-out Sikorsky S76 that the head of WhiteSands’ Sovereign Fund Division “just had to have” after touring Malaysia in one with the sultan of Johor.

  “Hello?” said Eric, his voice echoing as he called out.

  The hangar was a gaping structure of corrugated steel, concrete block, and heavy, exposed metal beams. High-intensity lighting shone down from suspended luminaires, creating a ghostly pattern of perfectly round and evenly spaced pools of brightness across the polished concrete floor that surrounded the craft. Eric’s query had drawn no response-the hangar was completely still, no sign of anyone.

  “I guess our pilot’s not here yet,” said Eric.

  I walked toward the Sikorsky. It was Matterhorn white with dark blue and red accent stripes, and it looked almost new. Someone had expended untold hours of elbow grease on the wax finish. It was a habit I’d inherited from Papa, seeing an impressive piece of machinery and wondering not how much it cost or who the stuffed shirt was who got to use it, but rather, who was the average Joe who so proudly took care of it.

  “Do you have his number?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” said Eric, “let me give him a ring.”

  He went back toward the office and dialed from the landline on the wall. I watched and listened as Eric left a message on the pilot’s voice mail.

  “No answer?” I said as he returned.

  “Uh-uh,” said Eric.

&nb
sp; I glanced at Olivia. She had pretty much been a rock up until this point, but signs of stress were starting to show.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I’m getting a bad feeling,” she said.

  “He’s only five minutes late,” said Eric. “I’m sure he’ll be here.”

  “Try him again,” said Olivia. “Michael already lost his driver tonight. For a guy like Burn, pilots are no less expendable.”

  Eric glanced at me, but I could hardly disagree.

  “Wait a second,” he said, as he fumbled for the pilot’s business card in his wallet. “I dialed his office number. Let me try his cell.”

  He went to the wall phone again and dialed.

  62

  BURN WAS MOTIONLESS, CROUCHED BEHIND THE SECOND ROW OF passenger seats inside the helicopter. Ivy was belted into the seat in front of him, her hands still cuffed, afraid to move or make a sound. Burn’s gun was pressed against the base of her skull.

  Ivy’s phone lay in the seat beside Burn, and Cantella’s cell was still transmitting to it. The speaker was switched off, however, with Burn listening through earbuds. The attack on Ivy in the emergency room had filled Burn’s risk-taking quota for the evening, and it was important to eavesdrop now more than ever. Ivy’s mother seemed to be losing her nerve.

  “I’m getting a bad feeling,” she said, her voice playing into Burn’s earbud.

  “He’s only five minutes late,” said Volke. “I’m sure he’ll be here.”

  Burn glanced toward the aisle to where the pilot lay on the floor-a dead heap, his neck broken.

  Don’t bet on it, folks.

  Burn peered out the window. The glass was tinted so dark that no one outside the helicopter could have possibly seen him. Still, he was cautious, raising his head up just enough to see out, not an inch more. The five-gallon fuel cans he’d filled were still in the corner, ready for use. The Sikorsky’s turbine engines used Jet A fuel, and Burn had filled two portable cans-more than enough to torch the entire building, let alone the helicopter and its passengers. His gaze drifted back toward the triangle of conversation near the maintenance office, and as he watched, a strange feeling came over him. Before tonight, he’d never set foot in this hangar, yet there was something eerily familiar about the situation, if not the setting. The cold concrete floor. The bright garage lights shining down. Two men. One woman. The situation growing increasingly tense, the woman on edge. And the smell of kerosene. It was on his hands-Jet A fuel was a derivative of kerosene-and the odor triggered memories. Kerosene was cheap and plentiful in Mumbai.

  It was the preferred fuel for bride burning.

  His sister’s screams were suddenly in his head, along with the indelible image of her husband and brother-in-law dousing her with kerosene and setting her afire in the garage. He hadn’t actually seen it happen, but her wounds had told the story. For five horrendous days in the hospital, Charu-her name meant “beautiful”-had managed to survive with burns covering 95 percent of her body. He never left her side, knowing what they had done to her. By the time she expired, he could see the men in that garage unleashing their unspeakable cruelty on a twenty-year-old woman from the Dhravi slum whose family was too poor to pay the expected dowry.

  And all these years later, he could still see it.

  “Wait a second,” said Volke, his voice transmitting through Burn’s earbud and drawing him back to his mission. “I dialed his office number. Let me try his cell.”

  The words struck panic: The pilot’s cell!

  Burn dived toward the body and snatched the phone from the pilot’s pocket. It made a slight chirp-the ring was just beginning-before he managed to remove the battery and kill the noise. He quickly went to the window and checked to see if Cantella and the others had heard the ring from inside the helicopter. He wasn’t sure. But it was time to make a move.

  He removed the earbuds and switched off Ivy’s cell. Then he pressed the gun firmly to the side of Ivy’s head and, with the other hand, unfastened her seat belt.

  “Stand up slowly,” he said, “and if you do exactly as you’re told, maybe the others will live.”

  63

  THE NOISE FROM INSIDE THE SIKORSKY MADE ME DO A DOUBLE TAKE. It sounded like a half ring from a cell phone after Eric dialed the pilot’s number. Eric and Olivia had heard it, too. The tinted glass was virtually opaque beneath the hangar lighting, making it impossible to see inside. Suddenly, the tinted glass door flew open. The sight of Ivy standing in the opening with a gun to her head-and Ian Burn behind her-sent chills down my spine.

  “Nobody move,” said Burn.

  The three of us froze.

  Burn looked almost exactly the way I remembered him from our very first meeting at Sal’s Place. To hide the scar on his neck, he wore a black turtleneck beneath a black leather jacket with the collar turned up. A knit beanie covered the deformed right ear. The expression on his face was all business, no sign of panic. He nudged Ivy forward, and they stepped down from the helicopter to the concrete floor. I noticed that Ivy’s hands were fastened behind her back. More than that, I noticed the look in her eyes-a desperate need to tell me something.

  I looked away, still wrestling with what Eric had told me back in the WhiteSands dining room-away from Olivia-about the woman I had married.

  “You,” said Burn, speaking to Eric. “Step away from the others.”

  As Eric moved closer to the hangar door, my phone rang-the cell that Ivy had given to me. It startled me, but I didn’t move. It was that funny double ring-the kind that announced a new voice-mail message. Somewhere between North Bergen and Somerset County a call had come through while my phone was either roaming or completely out of signal.

  “Reach into your pocket slowly,” said Burn, “and take out the phone.”

  I did as he told me.

  “Who’s the voice mail from?”

  I checked the display. The number was familiar, and it only took a moment for it to register in my mind. I’d seen it a dozen times just a few hours earlier at the Tonnelle Avenue motel, when scrolling through the call history on Mallory’s cell. The number was her friend Andrea.

  And thanks to Ivy, I now knew that Andrea was FBI.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  Apparently I was a lousy liar around loaded weapons; Burn clearly didn’t believe me.

  “Put it on speaker and play the message,” he told me.

  I retrieved the message and hit the speaker button. The message was almost ninety minutes old:

  “Ivy, it’s Agent Henning. I tried your other cell and couldn’t reach you there either. I’m calling with a heads-up. After we talked, I checked all of my contacts to find out if Eric Volke had, in fact, told the FBI that Kyle McVee was behind the bear raid on Saxton Silvers and the murder of Chuck Bell. I know he claims to have informed everyone, but it turns out that he hasn’t said anything of the sort to anyone. He lied to you. So just be careful, and call me when you get this message.”

  The message ended.

  “That’s not true!” said Eric. “I did tell the FBI!”

  Something was starting to smell rotten, and I was nowhere near Denmark.

  “Quiet!” Burn shouted. “Put the phone on the floor and slide it over here. Slowly.”

  Again, I obeyed.

  “Now everybody hold still,” Burn said as he reached for his cell. “We have some distinguished guests to invite.”

  64

  KYLE MCVEE WAS BEHIND THE WHEEL OF A BLACK SUV, DRIVING toward WhiteSands. His nephew had arranged for transportation to be waiting for them at the private heliport a few miles away when they landed. He was in the passenger seat, too busy fussing with his new toy.

  “I’m liking it,” said Wald.

  He was inspecting his new weapon for the tenth time, an older but nicely refurbished Italian-made Beretta 92FS Compact. From a technical standpoint, it was everything he needed-thirteen rounds of 9 mm ammunition in a quick-release magazine, a smaller and more easily concealed v
ersion of its big bad-ass cousin, the M-9 pistol used by the U.S. military.

  “I can see why Tony liked it so much,” he said, weighing it in his shooting hand.

  “You kept Girelli’s gun?”

  “My trophy.”

  McVee flung his fist at him, hitting his nephew square in the chest.

  “Ow! What was that for?”

  “Dump that damn gun the minute we’re done here,” McVee said. “Now put it away before you shoot yourself.”

  Wald double-checked the safety and tucked his trophy back into his shoulder holster. “Like I’m the only one taking unnecessary chances,” he said.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” said McVee.

  “The way we’ve played this so far, it would be difficult for anyone to place you in the same zip code as Ian Burn, let alone in the same helicopter hangar.”

  “Fine. Your concern is noted.”

  “I understand that they all have to go,” said Wald. “But there’s no need for you to be there when it happens.”

  McVee gripped the steering wheel even tighter. “You know nothing about my needs,” he snapped.

  “I’m just saying, we can handle this.”

  They rode in silence for another minute, but McVee’s emotions were beginning to roil.

  “You don’t know me,” said McVee, “and you certainly didn’t know your cousin.”

  “Marcus?” said Wald. “Of course I knew-”

  “You didn’t,” said McVee.

  He paused, struggling to get control of himself. There was nothing to be gained by unloading on Jason at this point, but the kid seemed to think that this was all part of Kyle McVee’s business plan and personal vision, that he was proud of the way his nephew was comfortable in dealing with the darkest elements of organized crime. The boy couldn’t have been more wrong.