Epsilon Creed (Joe Venn Crime Action Thriller Series Book 5)

by Tim Stevens

  “Maybe,” said Venn. “But I don’t think so. Mykels is spooked. He’s not just going to sit there all night. Sooner or later, he’ll make a move.”

  They were on their way up Central Park West when Venn’s phone buzzed again. It was Fil.

  “You sitting down, boss?”

  “I’m in a car,” said Venn.

  “You’re not gonna believe this.”

  “What?”

  “The face-recognition software threw up a match for the woman in the picture,” said Fil. “It’s a partial, but it’s rated at seventy-two per cent probable.”

  “Someone we know?” asked Venn.

  Fil left a pause long enough to be effective without overly dramatic. “Michelle Mary Anderson.”

  For a second, Venn drew a blank.

  Then: “Holy... Shelly Anderson?”

  “The same.”

  “Can’t be.” Venn stared out through the windshield.

  Fil said, “Like I say, it’s a seventy-two per cent match. So there’s a margin of error. But, you know... She fits in other ways.”

  “Yeah,” breathed Venn. “She sure does.”

  The memories were rushing in, vivid as yesterday.

  Almost three years earlier: Venn’s last sight of Anderson’s face, pixie-like behind the wheel of the sports car she’d stolen, as the car had slammed over the side of a cliff after a game of chicken with Venn’s own SUV.

  He’d learned only weeks later, after he himself had started to recover from the terrible injuries he’d suffered later that night, that while the wreckage of the sports car had been discovered down in the valley below, there’d been no trace of any human body.

  She’d gotten away, and was still up there on the FBI boards, though her place on the first page had been supplanted over the last three years by new up-and-coming criminals. Venn sometimes wondered what had become of her.

  But Fil was right. Bizarre though it might seem that she’d show up here again in New York after all this time, she certainly was capable of killing a Triad gangster without compunction. She was not only the most dangerous woman he’d ever encountered, but one of the deadliest human beings he’d come across, period.

  “Okay,” Venn said to Fil. “Get on to her. Find out if anything’s surfaced about her in the past three years. Anything at all – false clues, unconfirmed sightings, whatever. Schmooze the Feds if you need to. You come up against any barriers, call me and I’ll pass it on to Kang to deal with.”

  When he’d put the phone away, Harmony said: “Really? The same woman you were up against?”

  The episode with Anderson had been before Venn had met Harmony. Before the Division of Special Projects had even existed. But the woman was famous in the NYPD. A former detective herself, who’d moonlighted as a hitwoman. She’d caused major embarrassment, for sure, but a lot of cops had a sneaking admiration for the sang froid with which she’d pulled off the deception.

  “Yeah,” said Venn. “The same. But this changes things. Anderson didn’t just kill to get her rocks off. She was highly skilled at what she did. A high-echelon assassin. She must have been hired to hit Micky Wong. Or, at least, she killed him in the course of pursuing another target. Whoever hired her paid her well. She didn’t come cheap.”

  “So we’ve got two assassins, paid by well-off clients,” said Harmony. “Torvald hired the Triad guys. You think he may have hired Anderson, too? Maybe after the Triad people failed in their first attempt? And Anderson whacked Wong at Torvald’s request, to tie up that loose end?”

  “Or, maybe Wong decided to go ahead with the hit on Mykels anyway,” said Venn. “Shelly turned up, decided he was muscling in on her turf, and terminated him.” He sighed. “I just don’t know.”

  “But if she’s after Mykels...”

  “Then he’s in trouble.”

  Venn picked up his phone again to call Lovett.

  Chapter 34

  It was perhaps fitting that, in the end, it was Johnny Lee, as the de facto new leader of the Shadow Dragon Triad, who made the connection.

  After the remaining members of the Triad had concluded their meeting in the Bronx basement, they set to work with a vengeance.

  Every man had his own network which he’d been required to cultivate as part of his role as a Shadow Dragon. The networks consisted of a host of different people in all works of life. The aim of the Triad, as with others like it, was to insinuate itself into all areas of the city’s life.

  So there were informants working in stores, from tiny all-night supermarkets to the big department stores like Bloomingdale’s. There were contacts in the subway system and the sanitation department and the tourist boards. Thus far, none of the Dragons had actually succeeded in forging a link within the NYPD, which remained the ultimate goal.

  But the hundreds of connections across the city, chiefly within the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx, were a potential source of information and influence for the Triad, and it was to these people that the Shadow Dragons now turned.

  Descriptions were circulated far and wide. Not just of the woman and the man in the car from which Micky Wong’s body had been thrown – the police themselves were distributing these descriptions, after all – but also of Louis Q. Mykels.

  Johnny prowled the streets, sticking to Chinatown. It was a big risk, and more than once he had to avert his face or duck out of sight as a police patrol car came cruising by. He and his men were wanted, now, and the sensible thing would have been to lie low in one of the other boroughs, or even to leave the city altogether.

  But Johnny was the leader, now, and a leader had to stand firm. To show courage and commitment.

  At ten minutes after midnight, he hit paydirt.

  A contact of his who pumped gas at a station on Canal Street had reached out to his extended family, and had gotten a call fifteen minutes earlier from his aunt, who worked as a cleaning lady at a hotel on the western side of Central Park. His aunt had seen a tall, elegant black man earlier that afternoon, heading upstairs in the company of a group of uniformed cops. Curious, as anybody would be to see the cops in a hotel, she’d followed them until they’d disappeared into a suite.

  Yes, she recalled which suite it was. Number 36A. One of the finer ones. She knew, because she’d cleaned it countless times. But it hadn’t been occupied for a while.

  Johnny asked his contact to ask his aunt if she happened to have seen the guest register, to identify the name of the occupant of that particular suite. The contact told Johnny he’d already asked her this, and the answer was no, she hadn’t. Cleaning staff weren’t privy to such information.

  Johnny began to make phone calls.

  It might mean nothing. There were any number of people in the city who might fit the description of the man the aunt had seen. At the same time, he found a picture of Mykels, clipped from a newspaper, and he scanned it across to his contact and told him to pass it on to his aunt.

  After another ten minutes, he got a reply. Yes, the aunt said it was the same man.

  Johnny felt a thrill of triumph.

  He made more phone calls, drawing his men in like a huntsman calling together his pack.

  His instructions were clear.

  Drop whatever leads you’re following, and close in on the Mount Jackson Hotel.

  Johnny wasn’t religious, but he breathed a silent prayer of thanks to an unspecified god.

  We’ll avenge you, Micky.

  *

  They congregated in the north-western corner of Central Park.

  At first, they were a small knot of men, ten in number. They milled around, because a group of young men together would always arouse suspicions. But, as their number grew, it was as if any fear each had as an individual became subsumed into the collective consciousness of the group, a consciousness that was too enormous and too powerful to be concerned with petty fears of discovery.

  Soon, their ranks had swelled to twenty. Just a few left, and they were on their way.

&nbs
p; The men who hadn’t arrived yet were the ones bringing the hardware.

  Each individual member of the Shadow Dragon Triad had his own firearm. Some of them were sleek, high-end pieces. Others were Saturday Night Specials of dubious reliability.

  But the real guns, the assault rifles, were on their way.

  Johnny Lee was one of the last to arrive. The assembled group greeted him with silent reverence, enclosing him in a protective circle.

  He outlined the plan in short, unambiguous sentences.

  Two of them would go on a scouting mission to check out the lay of the land. The geography of the area around the hotel, whether there were any cops in evidence, and so forth.

  If the coast appeared clear, they’d explore the entrance to the hotel. There was risk involved, without a doubt. Whoever was guarding Mykels would be on the lookout for young men of Chinese ethnicity.

  But the rest of them would move swiftly after that, and hit hard.

  Their strength was in their numbers. There were thirty of them. One man, even with a police guard, couldn’t withstand an assault by thirty others.

  There’d be casualties. Johnny knew it, and he thought his men understood it, too. He looked at the pairs of eyes gazing at him in the gloom. Not all of them would survive tonight. Perhaps most of them wouldn’t.

  But every man who died would do so knowing, at the last, that he had died with honor.

  The final three members of the Triad arrived. Together, the group followed them to where they’d parked the van under a row of trees.

  Johnny looked in the back. The hardware lay there, gleaming dully in the half-light from the streetlamps.

  QSZ-92 semiautomatics, enough to replace the cheap and unreliable handguns some of the men carried.

  And the two assault rifles, which had been Micky’s pride and joy.

  One of the men lifted a rifle out of its case and handed it to Johnny, as though presenting him with a holy artefact.

  He tested its weight. Ran his hands over its length.

  He’d never fired it before. The only people who had were Micky himself, Charles Ho, and Stephen Smith. They’d been granted the honor of using the weapon because they were in the higher echelon of the Triad.

  But now Micky and Stephen were dead, and Charles was in custody. So Johnny Lee, the lowly driver, had to pick up the baton.

  The pounding in his chest, the thrumming in his veins, was the result of fear, yes.

  But also of excitement.

  The van was parked down a side street, off the main thoroughfare of Central Park West. They were two blocks away from the Mount Jackson Hotel.

  They’d remain there, with the van and its weapons, until the scouts reported back.

  Johnny nodded, and the two men slipped away into the shadows.

  Chapter 35

  Mykels hadn’t been asleep – he didn’t think he could sleep, he felt so wired inside – but he’d been sitting and gazing out at the skyline for so long he realized he’d been lulled into something like a trance.

  When the phone buzzed on the table, he jumped.

  He picked it up, the adrenaline singing through him. “Yes?”

  “It’s Carl,” said Torvald. “I’m in the basement parking lot. I’ll be up in a minute.”

  “Are there any cops down there?” said Mykels. He knew there were patrolman out in front, but he thought the police might have left a detachment in the basement.

  “Not that I can see. But I’ll be careful.”

  He hung up. Mykels continued to hold the phone, like a talisman.

  He glanced up at the shelf, where the gun lay, hidden from view.

  He had a sudden vision of Torvald arriving with a group of men, all of them armed.

  On impulse, he got up and retrieved the gun. Checked that the safety was off.

  Stood watching the door, counting the seconds as they ticked away into minutes.

  *

  Venn was about to end the call when Lovett said: “Whoah. Hang on a minute.”

  “Something?”

  Venn had briefed Lovett about Shelley Anderson. Told him to look out for a woman of her description. Even though she might have altered her appearance since the shooting of Micky Wong – Goth wasn’t her natural style, and would have been a disguise – her petite frame and pretty face would be hard to conceal.

  Lovett hadn’t seen anybody of that description so far coming into the parking lot and using the elevator. Just a pair of businessmen, and a middle-aged couple who appeared to have been out on the town, judging by the way they were laughing raucously and stumbling a little.

  Now he said: “Guy getting out of a BMW. He looks rich. Self-assured. But also kind of preoccupied.”

  “Can you get a photo of him?” said Venn.

  “Hold on.” There was a pause. Then Lovett said, “Sending it to you now.”

  The text message arrived a few seconds later. The picture wasn’t the greatest, the dimness of the basement rendering it grainy, but Venn recognized the hard-set, arrogant face, the mustache.

  “Torvald,” he said to Harmony. “Get us there. Now.”

  She slapped the flasher on the roof of the Crown Vic, hit the siren, and put her foot down.

  At the same time, Venn called Lovett back.

  “Lance, that’s Carl Torvald,” he said. “He still there?”

  “Got into the elevator a minute ago,” said Lovett.

  “He’s coming to take out Mykels,” said Venn. “To do the job himself. Damn.”

  “I’m on him,” said Lovett. Down the phone, Venn could hear the sound of running footsteps.

  Harmony weaved through the traffic, provoking a blare of horns. They’d been cruising the north of the park, and she was trying to circle back toward the north-western corner.

  Venn hit the speed-dial key for Mykels’ number.

  At the other end he heard the ringtone. Once. Twice.

  After the fourth ring, the voicemail cut in: “Please leave a message.”

  Venn said, fast: “Mykels. It’s Detective Venn. Carl Torvald is on his way up to your suite. You need to hide, now. The cops are coming up, so stay put. But don’t open the door.”

  Venn thumbed the red button. Then dialed again.

  He got voicemail once more.

  “Not answering his phone,” said Venn.

  “Maybe Torvald’s there already,” suggested Harmony.

  “I don’t think so. He couldn’t move that quick.”

  As they turned south toward the hotel, Venn called Harpin. He answered immediately.

  “You got people in the vicinity?” said Venn.

  “Yes. Six guys.” Venn had explained to Harpin earlier that he was trying to spook Mykels into leaving the hotel and leading them somewhere useful. They’d decided Harpin would organize some cops in a loose cordon around the hotel, in case they needed to close in at short notice.

  “Hit the hotel,” said Venn. “Torvald’s just arrived there.”

  Venn reached into his jacket and gripped his Beretta. He itched for Harmony to get there quicker, but there was some kind of traffic snarl-up a few yards ahead of them at a red light.

  He wondered if he’d made an error. He’d called Torvald anonymously to freak him out, but hadn’t thought the guy would know where Mykels was holed up.

  On the other hand, maybe he was overreacting. Maybe Torvald was paying Mykels a visit to try and make up.

  Nah. It wasn’t worth the risk.

  Harmony pulled onto the curb a few yards down from the entrance to the hotel and Venn was out the door, hand still inside his jacket.

  The uniformed cops who’d been posted outside looked at him, startled. Venn flashed his shield.

  “Come with me,” he yelled. “Our guy’s in trouble.”

  Harmony caught up with Venn and the two of them, plus the two patrolman, headed at a clip toward the entrance doors.

  *

  Johnny heard the siren from several blocks away and thought: Impossible.
/>   The cops couldn’t have spotted his scouts already.

  He left the others crowded around the van and ran to the end of the narrow street and peered out onto the main thoroughfare.

  There it was, coming from the left. An unmarked car with a flasher.

  Just one.

  Johnny ducked back as the car shot past. He watched it pull to a halt several blocks on.

  Outside the hotel.

  He strained to listen. There were no more sirens. Not yet.

  One cop car.

  He looked back at his men.

  A quick decision was needed.

  Either they pulled out, now, before more cops arrived. They’d most likely get away, though the two scouts he’d sent out might get busted.

  But after that, Mykels would be wrapped up so tight in protection it would take a Fort Knox-style operation to get to him.

  In his mind’s eye, Johnny saw Micky’s face.

  No. This was it.

  Johnny beckoned with his head.

  He said: “We’re going in.”

  Chapter 36

  Mykels jumped again when the phone started buzzing.

  He took a second to get a hold of himself, of his breathing. He couldn’t recall being so jumpy before.

  Then he wondered if the ringing phone was a ruse. Something to take his attention off the door.

  He back toward the table where he’d left the phone, keeping his eyes and the gun on the door.

  By the time he reached the phone, it had stopped ringing.

  Still keeping the door in view, he listened to the voicemail message.

  It was Venn. Torvald had been seen on his way up.

  The fool. Mykels had wanted him to watch out for the cops in front.

  Unless, of course, Venn had posted other watchers.

  The phone started buzzing again. Mykels put it in his pocket without answering it.

  He watched the door, as a bead of sweat crept maddeningly slowly down his temple.

  Just as the droplet traversed his cheekbone and dripped away, he heard the soft knock on the door.

  “It’s Carl,” said a low voice.

  Mykels walked softly to the door and looked out the peephole. The fisheye lens revealed a distorted face.