Nate laughed, and then winced at the pain. “I knew it as soon as I heard it. You want them to come after you.”
“You got it.”
He laughed again. “Memory or not, you’re still fucking nuts. Did you plant the story yourself, or did you get someone else to do it?”
“Jessie did it.”
By then he was laughing so hard that Doug was afraid he’d shake out the tubes that were attached to him. “I’ll bet she jumped at it … a chance to get you shot. It’s a win-win for her.”
“She said we were engaged.”
Nate nodded, finally getting the laughter under control. “I was going to be your best man. It’s just as well that it didn’t work out; I couldn’t find a damn tuxedo big enough. But you screwed it up big time.”
“Hard to believe, since she is fantastic.”
“Doug, I’m telling you this as your best friend, as someone who cares for you and only wants what’s best for you. If you hurt her again, I will beat and torture you until you are begging to die.”
“Thanks, that’s what best friends are for.”
“So what’s your plan?” Nate asked.
“I don’t really have one. I figure they’ll come after me, and if I stop them, I’ll trace the shooter back. If I don’t stop them, then I won’t have to worry about it anyway.”
“Brilliant.”
Doug nodded. “I thought so myself.”
“Except with me in here, who’s going to protect your vulnerable ass?”
“I’m self-sufficient.”
“Yeah, you were really self-sufficient the day you did the swan dive from the motel railing. Just be really careful.”
Doug was about to leave Nate’s room when his cell phone rang. It was Captain Bradley with a question. “Is that story in The Times true?”
“Not a word of it,” Doug said.
“Where did they get their information?”
“I don’t know, but I wish I did. I’m pissed off about it.”
“Get down here,” Bradley said. “Now.”
Bradley is standing in the doorway of his office, waiting for me, when I get there.
The FBI guys seem to have stepped back, and neither they nor Congers are represented at the meeting. Gharsi was the guy that triggered their interest, and with him reduced to fish food in the Atlantic, they are only moderately interested in my situation.
And here I thought they loved me as a person.
Bradley calls in Jerry Bettis, who had been Dan Congers’s partner when they were going after Bennett. Jerry is now the lead detective investigating the shooting at the hotel, which, because of the two people killed, is a murder investigation.
Bettis admits that the investigation itself is going pretty much nowhere. There were no prints of consequence in the motel room, no DNA that matched anyone of interest, and the bullets were from guns that were ice cold. Clearly, as Bettis points out, arrests are not exactly imminent.
But we are here to discuss the New York Times story and its implications. Bradley is pissed about it; he’s always hated leaks coming from within the department, and the fact that it was misinformation makes it even worse.
“There are two questions I want answered,” he says. “Who did the leaking? And the more important one is, why?”
“I have no idea,” I lie.
“It said in the article that it came from within the department,” Bettis says.
I point out that the entire department knows about my condition, so it could have been anyone. “It could have been for any number of reasons,” I say. “Maybe that reporter had done a favor for someone. Or maybe somebody inside told their wife, who told the reporter.”
“I have made it clear from day one that nobody is to talk to the press. Once it starts, it steamrolls. It cannot be tolerated.”
“I understand that, Captain. We don’t want leakers in the department, but the boat on this has already sailed. We need to move on.”
Bradley shakes his head. “You’re missing the point, Doug,” he says, unaware that I not only get the point, but I deliberately created it. “If whoever was in that motel room thinks you’re about to remember who they are, they will want to make sure you don’t.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But that could be why it was leaked. To put you in danger.”
“Good point. So let’s turn it into a positive.”
“How do we do that?”
“We wait for them to come after me, and we stop them. Then we find out who sent them, and why.”
“So we make you a target?” Bettis asks.
“Yes. Otherwise we’re spinning our wheels. And keep in mind, this might be about more than catching the shooter. This could be about preventing another attack like the one at the theater.”
Bradley is clearly reluctant to go along with this, but Bettis takes my side by pointing out, “He’s a target already; we might as well try and take advantage of it.”
We eventually win Bradley over. “Okay,” he says, “but we do this my way.”
“Which way is that?” I ask.
“You’re guarded at all times, twenty-four/seven, wherever you go.”
“Great idea, Captain. We’re trying to get them to come after me, so we do it by preventing them from coming after me.”
“Those are the terms,” he says. “Nonnegotiable.”
“Okay,” I say, even though I have absolutely no intention of adhering to the terms. “But tell them to stay as much in the background as they can.”
“They’ll stay where they need to stay to be effective,” Bradley says, and then turns to Bettis. “You arrange the surveillance. If he gets killed, it’s your ass.” Both Bettis and I get the humor in that, but Bradley doesn’t. He’s not in a humorous mood.
“One other thing that is crucial,” I say. “The fact that the story in The Times was bullshit stays in this room. As far as anyone is concerned, in the department or out, my memory is starting to come back.”
“So you agree the leak is within the department?” Bradley asks.
“I don’t know, but one person says the wrong thing, even accidentally, and the plan goes up in smoke. And that includes the Feds; I trust them even less.”
Bradley agrees, and Bettis requests that I tell him where I am going to be at all times, in advance, so it will help him in arranging for my protection.
“You got it.” Lying is coming easier and easier to me; I wonder if I’ve learned it over time.
Before I leave, I go to see Jessie in her office. “How did it go?” she asks.
“Perfectly. The captain wants to tar and feather the person who leaked the story.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Sorry to put you in that situation, but you’re the only person I could fully trust.”
“You’ve only known me for a couple of weeks,” she says.
“That’s long enough. And Nate says you’re the best.”
She smiles. “He and I have a mutual admiration society. And he’s helped me through a lot.”
“I put you through it, and he helped you through it. He and I are some team.”
As I’m leaving, she says, “Here, take this.”
I turn, and she’s holding out a folder. “It’s the addresses for the rest of the list on your phone GPS. In all the excitement, I forgot to give it to you.”
“Thanks; I’ll get started on it.”
“Be really careful, Doug.”
Gharsi was not much of a delegator.
It all went back to his lack of confidence in the reliability and competence of those around him. He had long ago learned that whenever he could do something himself, while minimizing risk, things worked out better.
The upcoming operation would require, by definition, a large number of people to pull off. One or more of those people would likely fail, for any one of a myriad of reasons. The planning took that into consideration, and compensated for it.
An individual failure
would slightly reduce the effectiveness of the operation, but the overall effect would be so devastating that it would not be noticeable to anyone other than Gharsi. The only failure that could not be compensated for would be if Gharsi himself were to fail, and that was not about to happen.
But there were certain aspects that simply had to be perfectly planned, and one of these was the choice of the targets themselves. Bennett said that he and Luther Castle had surveyed the prospects and made the best choices, but that didn’t impress Gharsi. No target could be certified as final without Gharsi examining and approving it.
In this case it had meant him working his way around the city, and being seen by literally hundreds of thousands of people. His change in hair color, and the addition of a moustache, would make it difficult to recognize him, unless someone was specifically looking. He doubted that many people, including law enforcement, had him top of mind.
Armed with a map of the locations, as well as a car that Bennett had provided, Gharsi had driven around the city. But unlike most tourists getting around with the help of a map, he was not interested in the sites a typical out-of-towner would want to visit. He was only concerned with parking garages. Underground parking garages.
There were seventeen on the list, and Gharsi was going to reduce it to twelve. It was an arbitrary number, but one designed to keep somewhat limited the number of people and the amount of supplies needed, without reducing the overall impact. Even allowing for one or two of the opportunities being aborted for whatever reason, the operation would have momentous consequences.
Gharsi knew that Bennett had turned the job of actually picking the targets over to Luther Castle, and Castle had been smart enough to only use self-parking garages, or at least those where the car’s driver could actually get down to see the structures. When the time came, it would matter exactly where the car was parked; otherwise the effectiveness could be minimized.
Gharsi knew a lot about explosives, and a lot about the structure of buildings. Therefore, he knew where the explosives should be placed within the structure so as to do maximum damage. This was not a third world country; these buildings were well built, and could withstand a lot. Gharsi’s plan was to hit them with more than they could survive, and that involved using both power and strategy.
By the end of that day, Gharsi had his dozen targets. There were three in Lower Manhattan, two on the Upper East Side, two on the Upper West Side, and five in Midtown.
Gharsi had taken a moment to think about the upcoming operation. People would be running in all directions, panicked, not knowing where they could find safety. The chaos would make 9/11 seem like a day in the park.
Gharsi couldn’t help but smile at the thought. He hadn’t realized that he was posing for a picture, taken by Doug Brock.
“His name is Danny Peterson. He’s an informant and a weasel,” Nate said. “Not necessarily in that order.”
Doug had stopped at the hospital to ask him about the next address on the GPS list, a bar in downtown Paterson. According to the records, Doug had been at the bar for only fifteen minutes, but it was at two fifteen in the afternoon. That seemed to Doug like a strange time for him to have made a bar stop, and not enough time to drink if he did.
Nate was telling him about Peterson, and how they had called upon him at that bar a few times in the past.
“So you’re sure he would have been the guy I was going to see?” Doug asked. “He’s always at this bar?
“All day, every day. It’s like his office. He hangs out there, does favors for people, runs errands, takes in and gives out information … he’s like the vice president of Weasel-land.”
“And we pay him?” Doug asked.
“No, he talks to us out of the goodness of his heart,” Nate said. “Of course we pay him, but just like fifty bucks, maybe a hundred. Then he goes to the bad guys, tells them we were there, and they pay him as well. Peterson is an equal-opportunity weasel.”
“If he’s talking to the bad guys, why do we keep using him?”
“Sometimes he has good information,” Nate said. “And sometimes we want him to squeal on us; that’s how we send messages. Boy, are you out of touch.”
“So if I want to get information to Bennett, Peterson is a guy I can talk to?”
Nate thought about that for a minute, then said, “He obviously would never get to talk directly to Bennett, but he’d get the information to Luther Castle, either direct or more likely through one of Castle’s people.”
“Castle was the other guy in the picture, right?”
“Right. He’s Bennett’s top guy; everybody reports in to him, and he reports to Bennett. Think of Tessio, or Clemenza, except Castle makes them look like Snow White and Cinderella.”
“How long would it take for Peterson to get information to this Luther Castle?”
“With your rep right now? You say something to Peterson, and Castle will hear about it in a nanosecond. He’ll be salivating waiting for you to leave so he can make the call.”
Doug frowned; he knew he was asking questions he should know the answers to, but the experience bank was empty. “And what will Castle do?”
“If he perceives it as a threat, he’ll tell Bennett and they’ll send at least two of their people after you.”
“Perfect,” Doug said.
“Maybe, maybe not. They won’t be sending a couple of college interns, you know? These will be experienced people. Of course, you used to be experienced too.”
“I understand.”
“There was a day you could handle them; now Castle will probably have you stuffed and hung above his fireplace.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Doug said.
“Why don’t you wait on this until I get out of here?”
“Not going to happen,” Doug said, and then asked Nate if he could borrow his cell phone. “You don’t need it in here,” he said.
“Why do you want it?”
“Don’t worry about it. You’ll get it back.”
“Yeah, right,” he said, taking the phone off the tray and handing it to Doug. “I should make you give me a goddamn deposit.”
“Good-bye, Nate. I’ll keep you posted.”
Doug went downstairs, waved to the two cops in the car who were guarding him, and got in his own car. He didn’t think it necessary to tell them where their next stop was, nor would they care. They would go wherever he went, sit in the car, and have donuts. It was an easy assignment.
So Doug took them to Tiny’s Bar and Grill, on Market Street in Paterson, so that he could visit with Danny Peterson, affectionately referred to by Nate as a weasel. Doug’s traveling companions pulled right up in front of the place, understanding that in this neighborhood, instant intervention might be necessary.
Doug went inside, and it took him all of ten seconds to identify Peterson, sitting at the end of the bar. Peterson actually looked like a weasel, small with a scrunched-up face. If that wasn’t enough for Doug to know who he was, Peterson’s reaction of stunned surprise clinched it.
Once he recovered, he got off the stool, turned, and walked into an adjacent room, leaving the door open behind him. Doug said nothing, just followed him inside and closed the door behind him.
“Man, I never expected to see you again,” Peterson said.
“Why not?”
“You’re a big hero now; I figured you’d be off making movies and shit … walking the damn red carpet. But here you are.”
“Here I am. Again.”
“I told you last time I didn’t know anything,” Peterson said. “I still don’t.”
“And I still want Bennett.”
“I thought you lost your memory, or something.”
“Yeah, well, it’s coming back. And when it’s all the way back, Bennett is going down, just like Sadri did, and just like Gharsi did. And you’re going with them, unless you help me.”
“How the hell am I going to help you?”
“Tell me what Gharsi and Bennett we
re doing together. I’m going to remember it anyway; it’ll go a lot better for you if you tell me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never even heard of this Gharsi guy.”
“Not the answer I wanted to hear, Danny.”
“That’s all I got.”
“What are you going to tell Bennett when I put out the word that you put me on to Gharsi?” Doug asked.
“I’m serious, who is Gharsi?”
“Bye, Danny.”
“Hey, come on, man. Give me some time to find out what the hell you’re talking about.”
“One day, Danny; you’ve got one day. I’ll be back here tomorrow.”
“Not here, man. I can’t be seen talking to you like this.”
The weasel was making it easy for Doug. “Then tomorrow night. Ten o’clock. The pavilion at Eastside Park … you know where it is?”
“Yeah, I know it, but that doesn’t give me much time,” Peterson said.
“It’s all the time you’re getting.”
“All right … all right. But just you, not your boys out there.” He had obviously seen the squad car pull up in front of the restaurant, behind Doug. “If Bennett’s guys find out I talked to you, I’m a dead man.”
Doug was happy to go along with the condition. “It’ll be just me,” he said. “Danny, don’t screw this up.”
“I need you again,” is what I say when Jessie answers the phone.
“I’m listening.”
“I’m going to be at the pavilion at the baseball fields in Eastside Park at ten o’clock. There will be some people there who could best be described as members of the opposition.”
“So they took the bait?” she asks.
“Not officially, but I’m pretty sure they will. Otherwise, I’ll be spending a romantic evening in the park by myself.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Just wait by the phone. When you answer it, I might talk, or I might not. Doesn’t matter; unless I tell you otherwise, just call in backup on an urgent basis.”
“Why don’t I join you there in the first place? Maybe even the odds a little.”
“Thank you, but no.”
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