by Rick Murcer
“We have to get to the ship. He wants us there. He pulled us away from the port, and it worked. There will be thousands of people getting off and getting on that ship soon. We need to get there.”
“Everyone to the port. Forget the casino,” he said into his com.
He pulled out his phone to text Alex a quick message then stuffed it in his pocket.
“Let’s go.”
Sophie hurried down the steps in front of him, then they began the three-block race to the east side of the port, desperate to get there. Their suspect had run them in circles for one final stint. Manny prayed he had realized the truth in time. They reached the end of the first block and sprinted across Julia Street toward the port.
He hadn’t been sure of much in this case, but he was sure of one thing now. Whatever this man was planning, the show was almost ready to begin.
CHAPTER-52
That had actually been easier than he thought. He watched as the two Feds and three other search teams raced off toward the cruise port.
“America’s finest, huh?” he whispered. “This country is in trouble.”
Looking in both directions one final time, he stepped away from the large, iron pillar that supported the open-air shopping area on Canal, directly across from the north end of the casino.
Satisfied he was safe, he picked up the small bag concealing the flashy red dress and began walking across the street. Once he reached the opposite side of Canal, he dropped the bag in a trash container. It had served a purpose, then it was no longer needed. Just like people.
A moment later, he stood on the very spot the Feds had occupied. The smile came without thinking. No matter what happened now, once he went inside the casino, law enforcement would never reach him in time. They’d blown it, and he’d get what he came for.
He had pulled it off, as planned, right down to this moment. The message that his phone received twenty minutes prior, complete with images, told him all that was left for him now was to complete what he’d started those years ago. And he would.
Touching the small device in his front pocket, he inhaled the warm air, straightened his posture, and walked inside the casino.
CHAPTER-53
After walking out of the front door of the old home located on the south side of New Orleans, he paused, then turned back to look through the wavy window of the faded wooden door.
He tilted his head to get one last look at the three people on the sofa, tied, gagged, and once again sedated.
They looked peaceful, like they were resting. Good. That was the image he wanted to portray. He had done his job. Thus, his reward awaited him.
He took one last look at his surrogate family for the last fifteen hours or so—and he did think of them that way; he’d protected them. Some may think what he had done was deplorable, and he knew it was illegal, but he wasn’t a bad man. He’d been kind.
Yet, we all had to make a living and his skill at this type of thing would always be in demand. His bank account said so.
He turned and stepped down the dilapidated steps, each one creaking as he went.
Once on the ground, he moved to the ’69 Camaro SS that he’d negotiated in this deal as a getaway car, in a manner of speaking. The SUV was out of sight in the leaning garage, but this baby wasn’t. He smiled. Where was the fun in being totally under the radar?
After climbing in, he checked his travel bag. It contained an extra twenty thousand in cash, provided by his client to allow him to get to Los Angeles after a day or two in New Orleans. It was all there. He started the vehicle.
He punched it a couple times, the roar like music to his ears, before he backed out of the driveway flanked by scarlet bougainvillea.
There was no question he’d enjoy his time in good old NOLA, but he’d also enjoy his trip back to LA. It had been weeks since he’d been home. The rest would do him good. Especially after this trip. New York to DC then to New Orleans—it had been a tough road anyway he cut it.
Yet, he was feeling totally alive.
He rolled down the window as he reached North Causeway Boulevard and hit the accelerator. Fifty, then sixty.
Once he hit sixty-five, he heard it, even above the road noise. The muffled click as two pieces of metal came together.
Shit. He should have known. He hadn’t checked for this.
It would be his final regret and the last thing he heard before the Camaro exploded into a fiery ball.
CHAPTER-54
Strolling in like he owned the place, he nodded at the two guards, flashing the smile that had gotten him out of more than one troubled situation. The guards both returned manufactured, mechanical grins and went back to their own conversation.
Idiots. Nothing had changed. But it would shortly, wouldn’t it?
The anger rose, and this time he allowed it. They, this place, had cost him everything. Innocence had died that night.
They hadn’t been like the poor excuse for humanity that was here now. These lost people, who would rather play cards or stay at their machines to win nothing but a zeroed-out bank account, were as guilty as the owners of this piece-of-shit establishment. Most in the casino that night could have helped. They could have prevented what had happened, but they hadn’t wanted to be involved. So be it. These people, here and now, would be involved. He could only hope there were some here that were here then.
Karma’s a bitch.
Once he was done with this one, Las Vegas was next. Then just maybe he would do a cruise ship, as he had tricked the authorities into believing was happening today.
First things first, however.
Turning on the red and gold patterned carpet, the lights and sounds of the casino cascading from every direction, he moved to the huge display near the theater on the west wide of the building. He’d be safe there while he did what he had to do, then hit the side door, which would not be the case for the rest of the garbage inside the building.
One more left turn, and he’d be in position. This end was less populated at the moment. Excellent. That meant more people on the main floor.
His heart was ready to explode through his chest. Much like the Camaro carrying his last remaining loose end had surely experienced by now.
He reached into his pocket, took out the small black device with the red button square in the middle, and placed it in his left hand. Taking two more steps, he stopped to exhale and gather his wits. He needed everything he had to get this done and survive.
“That’s far enough, Mister Rhodes, or should I say Gerhard Wanger?”
Rhodes spun around only to find himself staring down the barrels of four guns. Manny Williams stood beside his Asian partner, wearing a look that sent his confidence plummeting toward anxiety. But only for a moment.
Rhodes smiled.
CHAPTER-55
Manny waited—the real Gerhard Wanger’s smile taking some wind out of his sail. One look at his hand told him why Wanger was smiling.
“Put it down and you’ll live,” said Manny.
“I might say the same thing to you, agents.”
Manny quickly glanced at Sophie, then Josh, then to the security officer Josh had been partnered with. “Don’t shoot, yet.”
“I’d say that shooting at all would be detrimental to everyone in this place,” said Wanger, his voice calm and confident.
“That would mean you as well,” said Manny.
Wanger quickly scanned the area. Manny saw realization. “I now know why this area is minus people. But that won’t help them. When I hit this button, this place will be scorched from front to back. And to answer your question, yes, it would mean me as well. But that’s a price I’m willing to pay. Are you?”
His face was giving away his deep-down thoughts. Manny suspected he would die rather than lose this standoff, yet there was something else going on with him.
“Explosives then?”
“The most volatile on the market. Once it mixes with cold water . . . well, boom. I suppose you guessed chem
ical bioweapons, but that’s not my style. I want them all to pay, but I’m not cruel, Agent.”
“Yeah, you sound like a saint,” said Sophie.
“No saint, Agent Lee, just a seeker of justice.”
“Let’s get back to your question. No, to be honest, I’m not prepared to die. But I can tell you don’t want to die today either, do you?”
“Of course not. But the alternative of you taking me into custody isn’t in the cards, ever. I’ll push this button, even if you all get a shot off and kill me. My reflex will send this place into a fiery hell like you’ve never seen. But then again, you won’t see it very long yourselves.”
“Maybe. We can’t let you walk out of here.”
“Ahh, but you can. First, before I show you and Agent Corner how that’s going to happen, I have to commend you. How did you know I’d be here and not at the port . . . and how did you find out who I am?”
“Fair enough. I saw you on the other side of the street after we lost you in front of the casino, just the side of your face, mind you, and briefly, but it was enough. That’s when I realized what you did was the last in a long line of deceptions. Pulling us along by our ears, getting us to go where you wanted had worked to that point. I figured if that’s where you wanted us, you must have something else in mind.”
“Go on,” said Wanger, a bit of his arrogance waning.
“It became obvious to me that you never intended to attack the port. Seeing you still near the casino caused me to make an educated guess on what you truly had in mind.”
Manny then motioned at the others. “Keep on him.” He lowered his weapon and stepped forward.
“Far enough, Agent.”
Manny stopped. “I just want to see the look on your face after I explain the rest.”
More doubt crept into Wanger’s shifting eyes.
Lord in heaven, I hope I am playing this right, or none of us will make it out alive.
“I texted my research folks for two bits of information, and guess what? We found what we were looking for.”
“Which was?”
“I couldn’t figure out why, two different times, you practically invited us to identify who you were by staring into security-camera feeds. The only way you’d do that was to make sure we knew what you looked like, albeit a bit different than your normal look with the mustache and black hair and the fedora.
“So we compared facial recognition run against the men in the warehouse and you, minus a few attributes, and guess what? Your face was a ninety-six-percent match to the smaller man you killed in the warehouse, the one we thought was the real Wanger. The cheekbones were almost flawless; the eyes were close but not right on. Nevertheless, it was obvious there were two of you.”
Manny took a breath. “I believe you hired someone to be your double, paid for the surgery, then killed him and the others in the warehouse. No loose ends. But I still don’t understand why you didn’t do plastic surgery on yourself. I don’t know. Maybe that’s coming.”
“You’re smarter than I thought. That won’t stop what’s going to happen here.”
Then with his right hand, Wanger slowly pulled at his mustache and dropped it to the floor. Then he pulled off the wig. Manny saw him as the real Wanger now. No question. But Wanger didn’t stop.
Grasping his chin with some effort, the prosthetic came loose, revealing mangled scar tissue that looked like something from a horror movie.
“I’m not finished, Agent.”
Wanger then reached up to the right side of his face and removed the eyes and ear prosthesis, revealing another patch of mangled flesh.
Manny stared. It was impossible not to.
“I see you now understand the gravity of my situation. I’ve had surgery, but not like you assumed. The rest of your hypotheses are close enough, Agent. It wasn’t that simple to find someone. However, you’d be surprised what people would do for a million dollars. The process of integrating him into my business was difficult, but in the end, it worked out. It freed me to pursue other endeavors.”
Wanger was beginning to perspire. Manny wasn’t sure if it was because of his situation or because of what Manny was going to confront him with next. Wanger knew what was coming, no doubt.
“After realizing that you were trying to cover your tracks as Wanger—to get yourself and what you did for a living forever out from under the scrutiny of the Feds—we had to find out why. I mean, you could have done this without all of the killing, but then you’d be a wanted man. This way Wanger is dead, and you’d be a shadow that we’d never find, especially with your new look, whatever that would be. You’d be free to do whatever you wanted. That’s when we found out what had happened in the casino’s elevator five years ago.”
Wanger’s face contorted, then he regained his poise, most of it.
“I’m sorry for the death of your wife and son. I know a little about that. But it wasn’t the casino’s fault. That robbery went south, that’s it. That’s all,” Manny said softly.
Wanger stayed completely stoic, except for the pain in his eyes that came and went. Pain that would never leave him, no matter what he did.
“You don’t know a damn thing about it. People, including security officers, stood by while those bastards shot my family, one by one, then me, directly in the face, last. All because some dumbass hostage negotiator thought she knew what the hell she was doing. We ended up being the diversion that allowed those three men to escape. Us. My family. Just an innocent elevator ride to the hotel room we never saw.”
His eyes deadened. It made Manny’s stomach turn.
“We were going to have a grand time, Agent Williams.”
“I—”
Wanger reached his left hand toward Manny, the threat obvious. “Don’t speak about that again. What’s done is done, and I’m here to right the scale.”
“As you wish,” said Manny.
“Now, I’d clap, but my hand is occupied. You are right on most of the rest of your assumptions. The orchestrated killing of the real Wanger was essential to my goals. I could have blown this place to hell, and I wanted to. But eventually, even as slow as you Feds can be, I’d be caught. The fact that the DEA had already been able to infiltrate my organization with Flora Burns and Daryl Brooks—yes, I knew about them—made that clear. I had to become more creative.”
For a brief moment, Wanger looked past Manny and the others, toward the front of the casino. The stoic expression on the good side of his face now gone, replaced by rage or insanity . . . then back to control. The psychos they’d busted at the BAU had nothing on this one.
“You think you can evacuate this place before I kill hundreds? You’re wrong. I, fortunately, have contingencies. As much as I hate to do it, I guess I’ll go to plan B. Our time is done here, either way. So here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to make a trade.”
“A trade?”
“Yes. I plan for everything, and this possibility came out of my worst-case scenarios.”
Wanger reached into the front pocket of his pants and pulled out a phone, then looked at Josh.
“You are the leader of this group, Agent Corner. I’m going to toss you this phone, and I want you to look at the photos. Do it quickly.”
Josh nodded nervously. He then fingered the phone as the rest of them watched.
Wanger’s smile was particularly gruesome, given his face.
“You’ll see the first one is of a dead man lying on the floor of your home. If you get the chance, I suppose you’ll have to ask your wife about that situation. My guess is she might have been lonely or something.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” snapped Josh.
“You’ll figure it. Do you recognize the people in the next three images, Agent Corner?” He was almost cackling now.
It took a few seconds, then Josh looked up from the screen. Exchanging a confused look for unbridled anger of his own. He hurried toward Wanger, gun outstretched. “You son of a bitch. What have you done to m
y family?”
“Nothing, yet. And I suggest you stop right there, or none of them or us will live another day.”
Manny grabbed Josh around the waist, Sophie helping, to keep him from killing them all. Josh finally stopped, but Manny didn’t think it would take much to get him going again. If he were in that same situation, he knew he’d be going wild right now, worried about his family. Not to mention that first picture.
Taking the phone from Josh’s hand, his heart broke. Charlie and Jake and Connie were propped up on a sofa in a room somewhere in New Orleans.
If the handwritten sign pinned to Connie’s blouse wasn’t enough proof, the split screen showed Josh’s family’s SUV in front of a city neighborhood watch sign that read the fine city of NOLA.
Wanger was warped, but Manny didn’t believe he held any real ill will toward Josh or his family; they were simply a hedge against the unforeseen, like getting caught, like now.
He looked back to Josh. The man was doing all he could to keep it together. Manny knew he would. He had to.
“I suppose this den of sin is about empty now, kudos for you getting that far, but it doesn’t change my situation or yours. Here’s the deal. I trade this detonation switch and the life of Agent Corner’s family for free passage out of this dive. You won’t follow, you won’t send anyone after me, and most of all, you’ll stay inside this building for two hours exactly.”
Just then, Wanger’s eyes moved to look past Manny. His hideous smile worked overtime at what he saw.
“What if we don’t like dat deal, mon?” said Braxton.
“He’s got a good point,” said Belle.
Manny turned to see them standing side by side, Belle’s gun drawn, Braxton breathing fire, his hands clenched into large, ebony hammers.
“He really does,” said Barb.
She and Chloe appeared to his right, posed like Belle.
He wished she’d stayed outside, as he’d asked when Josh told him that the three women had returned to New Orleans. But had he really expected them to listen? He wouldn’t have.