Denouement

by E. H. Reinhard

  “Yeah,” Collison said. He looked at his men. “Let’s gear up. Lieutenant, Sergeant, why don’t you guys start tackling the stairs. We’ll group in the stairwell on the twenty-sixth floor and then head up. I’ll radio you when we’re getting on the elevator.”

  “Got it,” I said.

  As Collison led his group to the trunks of their two patrol cars, Hank and I headed into the building, quickly made our way through the lobby, and found the stairwell. We began our ascent. We weren’t up two flights when I noticed Hank fiddling with his cell phone a couple stairs behind me.

  “What are you doing?” I asked over my shoulder.

  He was punching away at the screen of his phone with his finger. “The last flight of stairs took us eight seconds. I’m trying to figure out how long this is going to take.”

  “Probably like five minutes if we stop a few times,” I said.

  Hank jammed his phone back in his pocket. “No word from Faust?” he asked.

  “I haven’t heard from him, no.”

  “Did you give him the address?”

  “Yeah. I left it on his voicemail.”

  We continued. Up the flights of stairs we went, three steps on each floor’s landing, a right turn followed by another flight—and again and again. We stopped for a breather on the tenth floor.

  Hank leaned against the wall and sucked in breaths of air. “I need to get my ass back in the gym,” he said.

  I rested my hands on my knees and hunched over. “I know. I’ve been slacking the last few months,” I said.

  Hank let out a big breath. “Better get back in there before you start looking like Bostok. He was thin before he made captain.”

  I thought for a moment about my stomach overlapping my belt—getting old and fat sitting behind a captain’s desk. “Come on, almost halfway there.”

  We continued up.

  Collison radioed us when we were rounding the landing on the twentieth floor. He said they were ready and waiting on twenty-six. Hank and I jogged the last six flights and pushed open the door onto the final floor.

  I spotted our team by the pair of elevators. Each elevator door stood open. Collison and his men wore their full SWAT gear, goggles resting on their helmets. Each man had on body armor with SWAT patches across the front and back. A curved, rectangular ballistic shield with a notch in the side for a rifle was leaning against the wall. Lapone rested a door ram on his shoulder. They all carried M4 carbine assault rifles. The team was ready.

  Collison spoke up. “The elevators are locked out. We’ll take the stairs up,” he said. Collison looked at me. “We’ll clear the hall, and you two enter the hall. We’ll clear the property, and you two enter the property. Not before. Got it?”

  “Yeah, okay,” I said.

  Collison pointed toward the stairwell. “Let’s go.”

  Hank and I removed our service weapons and followed the team up the flight of stairs to the twenty-seventh floor.

  Collison rested his hand against the metal door’s pusher. “Shield,” he said.

  York passed the ballistic shield to Lapone, who passed it up to Collison. Collison got low, pushed the door open, and put the shield to the floor. He stepped behind it, and the metal door rested against his back. The barrel of his rifle pointed down the hall in the shield’s cutout.

  “Clear,” he said from the corner of his mouth.

  Lapone took a position over Collison’s shoulder with his rifle pointed down the hall and his foot propping the metal door.

  Collison spun with the shield around the doorway to get eyes on the hall in the other direction. “Clear,” he said again. He jerked his chin toward the end of the hallway. “The condo is the last on the left. Let’s go, single file against the wall. Kane, Rawlings, hang back and watch our asses until I radio you.”

  “Got it,” I said.

  Hank and I stepped into the hall. I held the door’s handle and closed it as quietly as I could. Collison led his men down to the condo’s doorway. Hank and I covered them from our position. Collison stopped his men a few feet short of the door. Lapone, who was holding the door ram, set it on the floor and brought his rifle to his shoulder. I took a position on the other side of the building’s hallway so I could get a better visual. The door they stopped short of appeared to be cracked open. Collison gave his men a couple hand signals. Russell moved to the opposite wall of the hallway. York passed the condo’s doorway to the far side. Lapone stayed at Collison’s back. Collison stopped at the doorway of the condo, planted the ballistic shield in front of the door, and took a position directly behind it. He gave a finger wave to his men. From my position, I could see the door was standing open about six inches.

  York reached out and pushed the condo’s door the rest of the way open.

  “Tampa police, search warrant!” Collison yelled.

  I didn’t hear a response.

  Collison entered behind his shield. Their rifles pointed into the condo, his men funneled in behind him. Within seconds of them vanishing from my view, I heard Collison and his men yelling for someone to get on the floor. Then their voices went silent. A blip of static crackled in my ear from the earbud radio, followed by Collison giving Hank and me the all clear to enter.

  We walked down the hall and entered the front door of the condo. I saw no one. White marble floors stretched before me. The room appeared to be some form of sitting room. The right wall was entirely windows looking out over Tampa. To our left were three matching leather chairs positioned facing the windows and a couple of small tables. Past the sitting room, the condo opened up into what looked like a living room filled with black leather furniture. Hank and I kept our service weapons ready and walked through. We entered the living room. My field of vision shot left to our men and a couple other guys standing in the kitchen. A large granite topped bar shot out from the wall. Two men sat on the barstools—leaning against the bar was Agent Faust.

  I ran my hand over my forehead and holstered my weapon. “Faust,” I said.

  “Azarov isn’t here,” he said.

  I walked over. “Did you get my message or already know the address?”

  “I got your message, and we headed out,” he said. “I tried calling you back a few times, but you didn’t answer.”

  I pulled my phone from my pocket. It showed three missed calls. I pressed the button for the ringer on the side of the phone, and it showed on the screen that the ringer was set to silent.

  “We’ve only been here for a few minutes,” Faust said.

  I looked at the men with Faust. They wore tactical pants with firearm holsters secured to their thighs. Both of the men were large in stature and wearing sand-colored body armor free of any insignias or patches. Both had thick beards and short hair. The one on the right had a large knife in a sheath attached to his chest. They were dressed more like mercenaries than FBI agents.

  “Did you guys look around?” I asked.

  “Not yet. We entered and cleared the property. We were just about to start digging through the place when you guys came in,” Faust said.

  “See anything of interest on first pass?” I asked.

  He pointed to a phone on the bar. “That cell phone was sitting here. We have a smashed safe in the master bedroom. About it,” Faust said. “Like I said, we just did a walk-through.”

  “I suppose your federal search warrant trumps ours?” Hank asked.

  I saw one of Faust’s men smirk.

  “Yeah,” Faust said. “But let’s just have a look around and see if we can come up with anything.” He motioned for his two men to stand. “You guys can head out. I’ll call you if I need anything.”

  They said nothing and headed for the door.

  Hank flashed me a sideways glance.

  I looked at Faust. “Hired muscle?” I asked.

  “Just a couple of guys I have at my disposal. You have your SWAT guys. I have something else.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “Let’s take a look around.”

 
We split up and spread out. I took the master bedroom and began going through drawers, closets, and the master bath. I spent a good half hour leaving nothing unturned, but I found nothing anywhere that didn’t belong to Yury Sokoloff. I headed from the master bedroom back out to the kitchen.

  Faust sat on a barstool next to Pax at the breakfast bar. Hank was rummaging through the kitchen garbage can just beyond them.

  “Anyone get anything?” I asked.

  “Nothing in the living room or spare bedrooms. The kitchen here is the last room left. It looks like the place is a bust aside from whoever this belongs to.” Faust nodded toward the cell phone Pax was lifting prints from.

  “I got a set of prints from an empty glass in the sink as well,” Pax said. “I’m going to head back to the station and run both sets. At least we can get confirmation if the prints belong to Azarov or not.” Pax slipped the phone into an evidence bag.

  “We need to check the call log and get the number from that phone so we can get in touch with the phone company,” Faust said.

  “Here, it has power,” Pax said. He slid the phone, sealed in the see-through evidence bag, over to Faust.

  I stood over Faust’s shoulder as he clicked the buttons and brought up the log, which was empty. “Erased,” he said.

  “If the phone has a SIM card, my tech guys can get the deleted history,” I said.

  Faust nodded and then went into the phone’s settings and brought up the number assigned to it. He plugged the number into his cell phone and dialed. The phone rang. He hung up his phone and then dialed another number. After the call connected, he rattled off the number for the bagged phone and told the person on the other end of the line to get everything. He hung up and looked at me. “I have my guys working on getting the phone records. I should have it before the end of the night, and we can go from there.” He handed the cell phone to me. “Have your guys do their SIM-card recovery as a backup.”

  “Will do,” I said.

  Faust stood from the barstool. “I’m done here. I’ll call you as soon as I hear something. Let me know if the prints on the phone are Azarov’s, and let me know if you get anything from the SIM card.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  He left the kitchen.

  Hank pulled off the gloves he’d worn to dig through the trash. “There’s nothing in here other than garbage. Coffee grounds, food scraps, and random trash.”

  I walked over to Hank and looked into the trash can. “Food scraps are fresh. No mold, no stink. Obviously, someone has been staying here. All right, let’s wrap up and head out. I want to get that phone in Terry’s hands,” I said.

  “Okay,” Hank said.

  I tried dialing the captain to let him know what we got at the scene, but my call went to the voice mail at his desk.

  Chapter 20

  Ray made a last-minute turn into a parking lot. He’d stumbled upon the perfect place to meet Erik and hole up for the evening. The faded sign out front read Dusty Hill Motel. Below that, the sign read Air Conditioning and also Color Television. Ray had been driving north from Tampa for forty-five minutes on Highway 301—away from the city and away from anyone searching for him. A couple-year-old red Porsche was parked at the back. The front lot, next to the single row of motel rooms, was empty. He parked, stepped out, and headed for the office door.

  Bells attached to the top of the door alerted the twenty-something year old woman in the office behind the counter to his presence. She slipped the phone she was playing with into her pocket and got up from her chair.

  Ray glanced around. Behind the front counter, the office that the girl was in had an open door leading out the back. Ray could see the nose of the red Porsche parked just outside. Another door was directly to Ray’s left. Dark wooden paneling covered the walls. The front desk was dirty with a brown laminate top. A rack of tourist pamphlets stood to his right, covered in a layer of dust. The single window looking back toward the freeway had a yellow film covering it. The once-maroon carpet was worn and dark. Ray was sure from the state of the place that he wouldn’t be running into too many others booking rooms.

  The woman approached the counter. She flashed Ray a smile. “Looking for a room, hon?” She twirled her long brown hair around her finger.

  “I am,” Ray said. He showed her a smile in return.

  “For how long?”

  “Um, can I just go day to day?”

  “Absolutely. It’s thirty-five a night.” She rested her elbows on the counter and her chin on her hands while she waited.

  Ray removed his wallet from his pocket and grabbed two twenties. His eyes caught the tan line on his wrist where his Rolex normally resided. He handed her the cash.

  The woman placed the money in the till. Small in stature, thin, and reasonably attractive, she wore a tight-fitting white shirt and a small pair of pink shorts. If he didn’t have more pressing matters, he would have made a pass at her.

  “Just sign in for me here.” She slid Ray a sheet of paper attached to a clipboard and tapped a blank line. No other guest names occupied the sign in sheet.

  Ray wrote down a fake name and slid it back toward her.

  “I’m going to put you in room one, right next to the office here,” she said. She pointed toward the wall on the right. “There’s a vending machine out front and a decent mom-and-pop restaurant a few businesses up the street if you wanted to get some supper later.” She turned, took a key from a pegboard behind the counter, and handed it to Ray. “There you go. All set.”

  “Thanks. Do the rooms have telephones?” Ray asked.

  She nodded. “Local calls are free. Long distance will be additional, and you’ll have to settle up before you leave.”

  “No problem.” Ray tapped the key on the countertop, gave the girl one last look up and down, and turned toward the front door.

  “I’ll probably take a break a little later to go over to the restaurant I mentioned. If you wanted something, I can bring it back for you, or you could come along with me,” she said.

  Ray looked back over his shoulder at her. The girl smiled widely as she went back to twirling her hair.

  “I may just do that,” Ray said.

  “Okay. Maybe see you later, then,” she said.

  Ray nodded and left through the front door. As soon as he stepped outside, he smirked at the girl’s advance. He grabbed his bag from the trunk and went into his room, one over from the office. Ray closed the door at his back and latched the chain lock.

  After flipping on the light and tossing his bag on one of the two beds, he surveyed his surroundings. A door with a lock stood on the right side of the room—the back side of the door he’d seen in the front office. The curtains covering the single window at the front had cigarette holes in them. The green carpet had frayed patches and burns. The television sitting in the corner on a stand looked to be twenty-five years old at a minimum. One of the beds was a good six inches lower on one side than the other. The center of the bed he’d just set his bag on was visibly sunken. A small table divided the two beds—some of the faux wood laminate from the top was missing. A single lamp lit the room—the lampshade was a smoke-stained yellow.

  “Ugh,” Ray said in disgust.

  He walked through the room and into the bathroom at the back. Ray ran his hand up the wall and flipped on the light. His eyes caught a pair of roaches skittering down the sink drain. The shower curtain was brown with mildew. A smell wafted from the bathroom that Ray couldn’t identify. He went back to one of the beds, took a seat on the edge, and grabbed the phone. Ray pulled the sheet of paper from his pocket that he’d written Erik’s cell phone number down on. He dialed, wondering if Blok had called him. The phone rang in his ear.

  Erik picked up. “Hello,” he said.

  “It’s Ray. I rented a motel room a bit north of the city. Where are you?”

  “I just passed Ocala.”

  Ray smiled. If Erik had spoken to Blok, he wouldn’t be coming. “Okay. You’re about an hour away
. The place I’m at is called the Dusty Hill Motel. It’s a little ratty-ass place on highway 301.”

  “All right. I’ll plug the joint into my GPS.”

  “I’ll see you when you get here.” Ray hung up the phone and kicked off his shoes. He leaned back on the bed and rested his eyes. His thoughts went to his current situation and how he could possibly get himself out of it. He fell asleep before coming up with an answer.

  In what seemed like an instant, a knock on the door jarred Ray from his nap. He stood and looked out the window next to the front door. A white cargo van was backed into the spot in front of Ray’s room. Ray unlatched the chain and opened the door.

  Erik stood before him—small, thin, and smelling as though he’d just finished a cigarette. He took his hat from his head, ran his hand through his dirty blond hair, and put the cap back on.

  Ray stared at him, thinking how easy it was going to be to snap his neck like a twig.

  “Get into a fight or something?” Erik pointed to Ray’s face.

  “Nothing I couldn’t handle,” Ray said.

  “Sure. Are you letting me in, or…?” Erik asked.

  “Yeah, sorry, I just woke up,” Ray said. He stepped to the side so Erik could enter.

  Ray closed the door at Erik’s back.

  “Wow, you weren’t kidding. This place is a dive,” Erik said.

  “It’s just temporary. I needed someplace off the grid.” Ray sat back down on the edge of the bed nearest the door.

  “Off the grid?” Erik asked. “Doesn’t everyone think you’re dead? Isn’t that about as much off the grid as you can get?”

  Ray shrugged. “I couldn’t stay in the city anymore. Unforeseen circumstances.”

  Erik was silent for a moment, seemingly waiting for more explanation.

  Ray didn’t elaborate.

  “Okay, well, let’s get this show on the road,” Erik said. “I’m going to head into Tampa and find a room for the night after this. Do you have the money?”

  “Yeah.” Ray leaned over and unzipped his bag. He reached in, took out the wad of cash, and held it out toward Erik.