Fatal Exchange (Fatal Series Book 1)

by Russell Blake

  Loca, real name Angelina, was well-liked by the crew and she’d been in good spirits the night before last. She was one of the dependable ones, didn’t have a drug or alcohol problem, and was relatively stable. An aspiring comic, she was just into the bike gig to pay the bills until she hit it—which nobody doubted she eventually would. Tess was concerned. She’d called Loca’s house last night but had gotten the machine.

  Weird. They were friends, and she always called back.

  Tess hoped she was okay—the city could be a rough place to live.

  ~ ~ ~

  Seung had scored earlier and was feeling good about the night’s prospects. He’d been at his favorite club, partying with a few buddies, until he got tired and decided to call it a night. He didn’t have a job; a small-time trust-fund kid from his father’s side, he saw just enough payout every month to keep his condo and his bad habits.

  He dealt a little here and there to supplement his income, and that hobby had turned into enslavement over time. Smoking heroin had turned into skin plinking on weekends, which had turned into shooting up twice a day… He now considered himself fortunate his dealing covered his nut. Although pretty soon, his cut of the watch sales would put a hundred grand in his pocket.

  He was high from the alcohol and anxious to slam, so he was clumsy as he fumbled for his door key, failing to register the men on either side of him until everything went black. When he came to, he was tied to his dining room chair, naked and shivering, already starting to hurt.

  He tried to focus, shook his head. That’s when he saw the two figures sitting on the other side of the room and realized he was in serious trouble.

  One of them spoke, conversationally, slowly.

  “Our friend Seung likes the needle. Look at the track marks. Tsk, tsk. He should know better. Drugs kill.” The man spoke in Korean, but had an accent Seung couldn't place.

  “Yes. And I bet he’ll start to go into withdrawals soon. That’s no fun at all. He’s already shaking.” The taller man had the same distinctive accent, which Seung now recognized—Burmese. Like his cousin.

  The smaller man looked at Seung, sitting naked, vulnerable. “I was going to cut off your toes, one by one, and then fingers, then your ears, then your nose, until you tell us what you did with our property. I still may, but only after you’ve gone cold turkey for a while. I hear that’s hell on earth.”

  His companion smiled and held up a syringe. “Or you can tell us what we need to know, and you can go painlessly. Your choice. You’ll still be dead, either way. Like your cousin. And his two little girls. The second little girl was pretty far gone by the time he told us about you. God rest their souls.”

  This was bad. Very bad. They’d gotten his name from his cousin, so they knew. Everything.

  Maybe he could lie, get the overdose.

  “Give me the needle and I’ll tell you.” He struggled to concoct a story, head fuzzy from the blow and lack of heroin. “I gave the briefcase to my supplier—he’s going to convert it into diamonds. His name is Jung, runs the Poodle club. I’m supposed to meet him in the next few days and get the stones.”

  The man appeared to consider it. “I think you’re a lying dope fiend. Gave the goods to your dealer, huh? Let’s try this in eight hours. In the meantime, here’s something to think about.” He walked over and placed a strip of tape across Seung’s mouth, and then pulled a test tube of clear liquid from his pocket and sprinkled the contents onto the young man’s torso. The skin started to smoke and crackle.

  “A little acid does a world of good for the memory. See you in a few hours. Next time you lie to me you get more acid, and believe me, the second time’s worse than the first. And the needle option will be gone if there’s a lie number two.” The man smiled at him, just a little fun between friends, as Seung lost consciousness from the pain.

  Six hours later he told them everything.

  They lied about the needle.

  The taller man had emptied the syringe onto the floor in front of him as Seung watched in horror.

  It took him another four hours to die from blood loss, the withdrawals and last of the acid ensuring every moment of the remainder of his life was agonizing.

  Chapter 4

  The warehouse was already heavily guarded, but ever since the incident, every person entering or leaving was also subjected to a methodical search. Vehicles were kept away from the vicinity by a barbed wire enclosure, and workers had to go through an entryway equipped with an airport metal detector and x-ray system—about ten years out of date, but still effective.

  Hong patiently moved through the elaborate system, noting the additional security at the entrance. He was always amazed at the stark contrast between the surrounding countryside and the world within the walls of the compound. It was like being transported through time into the distant future, a future of technological possibility and endless abundance.

  In a country where much of the population was starving to death, a country that had been devastated by political turmoil and natural disasters, where the total GDP was thirty-three billion dollars, the government had spent over a billion dollars to build a production facility and create a sterile environment, sparing no expense on sophisticated machinery and systems. Hong’s steps thudded on the polished concrete floors, and he wondered to himself how much just one of the large lighting grids suspended overhead cost. No doubt enough to keep many families alive for years. It seemed wasteful, but who was he to question the wisdom of the master planners who had envisioned this plant? Better to keep to one’s responsibilities and leave the big thinking to others.

  Questioning superiors was culturally forbidden and a sure ticket to a radically shortened life expectancy, and Hong wasn’t ready to join his ancestors quite yet. Still, he wondered how much of the hardware had been necessity, and how much had been someone padding their procurement budget.

  Climate control kept the building at a constant 68 degrees Fahrenheit, and it was lit up like a football stadium twenty-four hours a day. Diesel backup generators ensured fail-safe power availability in a region known for constant blackouts. If the facility was left unprotected, power fluctuations could damage sensitive devices and play havoc with the computers and lasers. That would be unacceptable; he understood the prudence in the cumbersome engines.

  Still more money had to be spent for the necessary raw materials, the appropriate laser technology, a supply of the correct inks, fibers, and coded strips, etc. Out of the entire expenditure, a relatively small chunk had gone for technological espionage, to obtain information on classified aspects of the process.

  Hong was a member of the “design team,” one of the trusted experts—at least until recently, when trust had been replaced with suspicion and paranoia.

  He reflected on the last year’s efforts, the endless stumbling blocks and obstacles his team had overcome. Sixty-hour work weeks had been the norm; the high pressure was a constant reminder of the importance of the project and the significance of the risk.

  Getting the paper right had been hardest—the composition, thickness, finish, feel, watermarks and security thread had to be perfect. You couldn’t buy this paper anywhere. Hence the conversion of one of the military facilities to paper manufacturing.

  After they got the twenty-five percent linen and seventy-five percent cotton base correct, they spent months on the various red and blue synthetic fibers; the variations in the lengths and thickness required precise matching, as well as counts per square centimeter. The color-shifting inks and the background color matching had also been problematic and time consuming to replicate. Once they finally pegged them, they adopted a multi-stage printing process.

  The final hurdle to cross, creating the engraved plates for the intaglio printing, had been relatively trivial—advances in high-resolution scanning made replicating the detail on the actual artwork only a minor challenge, whereas years ago it had been the biggest problem. Technology was a marvelous thing.

  Hong moved through t
he facility to the clean room, where the technologists on shift wore white jumpsuits and face masks they discarded when they exited, stripping down to their underwear before donning street clothing. The security procedures hadn’t been as complex before the incident, but as soon as the new procedures were implemented, even the most minor infractions or breaches became capital offenses.

  Inside, a team of three lab workers was setting up the first “real” run, having ironed out the bugs from the last test batch. While those bugs were imperceptible except to a trained eye with a microscope, they were still evidence of something amiss, and couldn’t be tolerated.

  The head of the team glanced around distractedly at his colleagues as Hong moved to his position by the bank of switches, then gave a nod. The elaborate machines were engaged, and the complex meshing of technology began.

  A type of paper harder to create than a nuclear bomb was fed into one end, and less than a minute later a sheet came out the other end. Robotic arms on tracks moved it to a drying bin that resembled a catering tray holder, where the newly-minted sheet of bills waited for the next run through another press.

  Each set of bills required multiple runs for the different inks. It was complicated. Time consuming. Involved. It was why they’d had to acquire so many presses to generate adequate volume.

  The finished product was an official-looking building surrounded by trees on one side, and an austere man’s portrait in the center of the opposite side looking out into eternity with an expression of what might have been impatience, lips slightly pursed, with a delicate twinkle of amused irritation.

  Benjamin Franklin, at your service.

  They were perfect U.S. $100 bills, brought to you by the Republic of the Union of Myanmar. Now indistinguishable from the genuine article.

  A virtually limitless supply of hard currency to support an economy on the brink of collapse. It was a new lease on life for Myanmar , and an opportunity to slowly subvert the U.S. financial system and savage the hated opposition of the Myanmar government, using economic means rather than military.

  It was perfect.

  Almost.

  Somehow, some way, a week before, a million dollars of the final test run had disappeared. That batch had several small imperfections—almost undetectable, but still, imperfections that could cause the whole plan to collapse.

  If the U.S. discovered its highest common denomination bill was being counterfeited this accurately, they’d know it was only possible using the economic resources of a government. The sophistication required to counterfeit perfectly required a huge investment, and if the Treasury Department really started looking, tracing ink and press and laser purchases, it was only a matter of time until the U.S. came knocking on Myanmar ’s door.

  To combat the problem in the short term, the U.S. could always freeze cash transactions involving late-generation hundreds and simply issue a new currency and require verification of each serial number for an exchange. Inconvenient, but doable, and a definite possibility once the scope was fully appreciated. The U.S. government had been trying to discourage the use of cash for years, so it might secretly relish an exchange program.

  Myanmar had to find out who took the million and where it went, quickly. Even one bill in the wrong hands could render the whole program a failure. The new batch had the imperfections corrected, so only the test batch was a problem.

  But it was a huge problem—one that had to be resolved at any cost.

  ~ ~ ~

  Tess rose early, nudged her boyfriend Nick awake, and jumped into the shower. She lived in a small loft apartment in Soho, which had transformed over the last decade from a dangerous fringe neighborhood into a gentrified area filled with yuppies.

  She waited for the water to heat and inspected her body with approval.

  Just turned twenty-eight; not bad, not bad at all. Lean and rock hard from bicycling six to seven hours per day, solid muscle in peak condition. She could kick some serious ass, that was for sure, and was in better shape now than in her teens.

  She touched the tattoo on her arm. Kanji script, the symbols for fire and water. Her hair was naturally straight and very dark, almost black—the black Irish in her, her Mom used to say. High cheekbones, full lips, eyes with a slight Asian cast to them, very dark with a lot of green. Pierced tongue, pierced navel; she’d thought about piercing her nose but had never gotten around to it.

  Tess enjoyed the rush of the warm water on her breasts; it felt tingly, and she became a little aroused. It must be that time of my cycle, she thought absently as she shut off the water and grabbed her towel.

  She stepped out of the shower and studied her torso in the mirror. A six-pack, medium-sized breasts, five foot five and one hundred thirteen pounds soaking wet. It was actually a struggle to keep ingesting enough calories to maintain that weight—she figured she was burning four thousand or more per day from the riding.

  Too bad the pay sucked, though not too bad if you were fast.

  She watched as Nick stumbled into the bathroom, bleary-eyed and hung over; he’d stayed out late at rehearsal and was considerably worse for wear. He liked his booze and blow a little more than most—not too unexpected for a musician. Nick had a typical New York, Gen X slacker band-dude look and was going nowhere. But then again, she was a bike messenger, so whatever.

  It made them both happy for now.

  She thought he was cute and they got along well, plus they had an important characteristic in common: they both favored rough, raunchy sex in dangerous places. That’s all she wanted out of the relationship, and all he delivered. Fine by her.

  Keep it simple.

  She’d had enough drama in her life, was still in a state of flux. She had no interest in trying to hold anything more serious together when she felt like she couldn’t hold herself together most of the time. At least the relationship was low stress—a feature she prized.

  Tess gave Nick a big smack on the lips, grabbing his crotch through his boxers and giving the goods a gentle tug.

  “Come home early tonight, huh? A girl gets lonely in the big city,” Tess intoned.

  Nick looked interested and made some affirmative grunts, but he was still out of it and she was running late.

  “Shit, we have that thing at the club tonight. Don’t forget.” She scooped up her helmet. “Call me,” she said, waving her cell phone as she moved out the door.

  She shouldered her bike down the stairs and out onto the street. It was humid, and the garbage men were on strike. She wondered if they deliberately waited for summer, or if it just worked out that way.

  She pedaled the half-mile to the depot and ran inside, signed in. The whole crew was there, drinking coffee, powering down donuts, getting ready for the day’s work.

  Duff, a six-foot-five dreadlocked black man, gave her a high five as she walked by, and continued his discussion with Angel, a Puerto Rican girl who’d been there for six months. Duff was gang-related but gone straight, trying to do the right thing by his girlfriend and daughter. A row of bullet scars across his back paid testament to his earlier life and affiliations, yet he spoke very softly, gently. He seemed menacing if you didn’t know him, but Tess did—he was a good guy, and they were close friends.

  Paco, Tiny—an obese Jamaican—Turbo and Luis were hanging out smoking, Turbo showing off his latest tattoo in his full-sleeve project. Skid and Dirter, who played in a punk band together, were trying to get Pug, a blond street chick, and Sin City, her almost constant female partner, to go to their show the next night. Probably wouldn’t happen unless a guest-list could get them in free.

  There were maybe two dozen other bike messengers lounging around, waiting for the sheets to get issued. Candy, a voluptuous blonde, came over and sat down on the long bench next to Tess.

  “Have you heard from Loca?”

  “No. I called her last night a couple of times, and the night before, and no answer. Strange, huh? Maybe she had to leave town on an emergency or something,” said Tess, again concern
ed.

  “I don’t think so. She likes the job; I think she woulda called one of the dispatchers.” Candy was an actress in training, a starving artist from Atlanta.

  “Speak of the devil,” Tess muttered.

  Two men walked out of the dispatch area with the morning’s assignment sheets and started calling names. The taller, older, huskier one, Frank Meyer, was in his mid-sixties and had been there since the beginning of time. He chain-smoked Pall Mall non-filters like they contained the elixir of life, and always smelled like nicotine. So did Stu Giblett, the smaller wiry dispatcher, who’d started about eight months ago and had a pencil-neck nerdy thing going. He had skin so white it was translucent, and the demeanor and voice of a librarian.

  Tess considered them. Neither was going to win any personality or looks contests, but then again, the two night shift guys, Henry Rocklen and Vance Reynolds, were also oddballs. Nobody wound up in this business if they had something better, so almost all the employees were damaged goods—usually substance abuse or criminal records or a train wreck of a life.

  Except Tess. She was just there temporarily, only passing through.

  “Hey, you all going to hit the Avalon crazy crazy tonight?” Pug called out to no one in particular. A chorus of “yeah baby”s and “uh huh”s sounded as the crew prepared to scramble and hit the streets. It was Friday, and Friday was payday, and that meant full wallets. You bet your ass everyone would be out tonight. Friday night meant get the party started for the weekend, the earlier the better.

  ~ ~ ~

  Detective Ron Stanford walked up the concrete stairs from the subway and down the block to the precinct house. Amid about forty thousand police officers and detectives in the NYPD, he had remarkable freedom as a homicide specialist—a floater, specializing in the most violent murders the city offered up. If it was a domestic incident or a robbery or a gang death or a routine homicide, somebody else got the call. When it looked like a serial killer he was first draft. It kept life interesting.