by Brian Drake
The other woman lowered her hand. “They want a thousand. I’ve made, maybe, two hundred.”
“Where do you keep them?”
“They’re gone. Two men come to collect. . .now and then.”
The door on the other side of the room opened and McCormick entered.
“You’re coming with me,” he said, grabbing Ali by the wrist of her left hand. He started to drag her toward the door. Ali kicked him. He turned and smacked her. As her head snapped to one side, he scooped her up and over his shoulders.
McCormick carried Ali down a short concrete hallway to another room. He placed her in a chair and tied her wrists behind the back and her ankles to the legs. He slapped her awake. She raised her head. A single light burned above her, the concrete walls were bare. She noted boxes stacked in corners labeled with the names of various brands of alcohol.
“Where am I?”
“I ask the questions, honey.”
“Go to--”
He slapped her hard. Her face stung.
“Where is he?” McCormick said.
“Santa Claus?”
He slapped her again. Same place. She groaned.
“Mr. Hero. Your boyfriend.”
“Ex,” she said.
He leaned close to look in her eyes. He smelled musty.
“You’re not funny.”
“I’m going to kill you, McCormick.”
“I won’t be as easy to kill as your old man was.”
A red flush crawled up her neck and she strained hard against the bindings but they didn’t budge. McCormick folded his arms and smiled. Ali spat in his face.
He removed a handkerchief from his coat pocket and wiped his face.
“You couldn’t just take the money?”
“It’s never been about the money.”
“Where is he?” McCormick stepped closer.
“He’ll get here soon enough,” she said.
He smacked her again. Third time in the same spot. She didn’t feel the sting any longer.
“Having fun?”
“What is it about you?”
“Tell you what,” Ali said, the right side of her face red, matching the color of the welt from being hit by the Uzi. She breathed hard. “Just so you know. I’m a former C.I.A. officer and my ex? He kills people for a living. People like you.”
McCormick froze in place, and then turned for the door. He left her there.
“Obviously,” General Ike Fleming said, “the situation has evolved.”
“You have a talent for understatement, sir.”
“Are you still with O’Brien?”
“He’s outside the car on the phone with his boss.”
“You can’t take an active role, Scott, but I can give you a temporary transfer to the Domestic Protection Division, which will allow you to consult.”
“So F.B.I. gets Hamin?”
“Once he’s in the system, we’ll take over like we have a hundred times before.”
“Okay,” Stiletto said.
“Do you have any idea where to look for Ali?”
“None.”
“Better get cracking and find one. Oh, and Scott?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Please be careful not to miss any sudden opportunities.”
“I’ll do my best to create them.”
“Good luck.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Stiletto put his phone away as O’Brien returned to the car. “So?”
“I’m allowed to consult.”
“Good. My boss is up to date and we got a warrant for Pito’s home and office.”
“Let’s hit the office. Good stuff will be there.”
O’Brien started the car.
The dash clock read nearly two a.m., and as they drove across town, Stiletto and O’Brien passed several bars and clubs which were depositing their drunken clientele to the street. They eased through the more congested spots without incident.
A squad of F.B.I. with an accompanying evidence crew awaited O’Brien at Pito’s Main Street office. Building security let them in and told the agents their colleagues were already upstairs. O’Brien and Scott exchanged a look.
O’Brien ordered the squad and evidence team to stay in the lobby. He and Scott rode the elevator to the 20th floor.
“Where’d they get the credentials?” Stiletto said.
“Probably off the Internet,” O’Brien said. “Very few see a genuine F.B.I. badge so fakes are easy to get away with.”
The elevator stopped at the 20th floor. O’Brien and Scott stepped into the lobby and went down a hallway to the stairs, taking out their pistols as they carefully climbed to the 21st floor where Pito had his office. They moved sideways, backs to the wall, O’Brien looking up ahead while Stiletto watched the space behind them. Neither spoke. Some cigarette butts lined the steps. Some graffiti decorated the walls. At the door to the 21st floor, they stopped. Stiletto opened the door enough to peek through with one eye. He shut the door.
“One man by the elevator,” he said. “In a suit.”
“Thought of everything.” O’Brien traded his gun for an ASP Expandable Baton. He flicked his wrist and the metal baton snapped to its full length of 21-inches. O’Brien had put a small smiley face sticker on the grip.
“Nice touch,” Stiletto said.
Stiletto opened the door and O’Brien charged through. Scott followed behind, the Colt .45 in his right hand.
The guard opened his mouth to shout an alarm, but O’Brien swung the baton before any sound escaped the man’s lungs. The baton struck the side of the man’s head with a hollow thwack. Stiletto caught the guard and lowered him to the floor. O’Brien put away the ASP and took out his gun once more.
Ceiling lights flickered as they advanced down the hallway. Presently they came to a set of double doors with a sign that said “Pito Legal Services”. The right-side door was already open a few inches. No lights burned in the office.
The hinges did not squeal as O’Brien led the way through the doorway.
Past the reception desk was a bullpen of cubicles. Beyond that, Pito’s corner office, with two windows looking out on the city.
Two more thugs in suits stuffed a tote bag without paying attention to the door.
Stiletto put the glowing sights of the .45 on the thug behind the desk while O’Brien covered the other.
“F.B.I.! Freeze!”
The two men turned to look at them in what seemed like slow motion. One of them blinked in surprise.
“Let’s see those hands! Raise ‘em!”
The one behind the desk brought up his right hand, which held a pistol. Stiletto’s index finger barely twitched. The .45 slug punched through the man’s head and cracked the window behind him.
The second thug lifted both hands above his head. “Don’t shoot! I give up!”
O’Brien ordered the man out of the office, and against the wall. Stiletto kept the man covered while O’Brien patted him down. He removed a wallet, cell and car keys from the thug’s pockets. After snapping cuffs on the man’s wrists, O’Brien sat him in a chair.
“What’s the rumpus?” O’Brien said. “You ain’t washing windows.”
The thug, breathing hard, stared at the carpet.
“We got you red-handed raiding the office of a man who has just been murdered,” O’Brien said. “You’re going away unless you help us.”
The thug shook his head.
Stiletto said: “You feel that?”
“Feel what?” O’Brien said.
“There’s a draft from that crack in the window. Wouldn’t be hard to make it larger by throwing this guy through.”
“You’ve seen too many movies.”
“Seems telling us a thing or two beats taking a flying lesson without an airplane.”
“Well,” O’Brien said, “I suppose we could see how big a splat he makes.”
Stiletto and O’Brien grabbed one of the thug’s arms and started to pull him out of the chair. He s
truggled, yelled, and finally said: “Okay!”
“Okay what?”
“The boss told us to come in here and take everything.”
They dropped him back in the chair.
“Who’s the boss?”
“Califano.”
“How perfect is that, Scott?”
“Let’s see the goods,” Scott said. He and O’Brien went into the office to sort through the totes.
They dug through the papers and notebooks. O’Brien found a flip-up notebook with a bunch of words crossed out. He set that aside. The papers all contained lawyer stuff. It wasn’t until Scott found a USB thumb drive at the bottom of one of the totes that they stopped searching.
Stiletto plugged the USB into his smart phone. It opened a window of file folders. Stiletto tapped one but it asked for a password.
“Guys at the office can crack this,” O’Brien said.
“We don’t have that kind of time.”
O’Brien picked up the flip-up notebook again. “Try this.” He pointed to the word at the bottom of the list that was not crossed out. Stiletto entered the word: Engine. The password prompt vanished and the folder Stiletto had tapped opened.
Stiletto opened a file called Fairmont1.
He scrolled through several files, opened Fairmont2 and Fairmont3. O’Brien read over his shoulder.
“Eureka,” Stiletto said.
O’Brien called the team in the lobby. “We’re secure. One dead, one in custody. Send everybody up.”
While the evidence team loaded boxes of material from Pito’s office, Stiletto and O’Brien sat in the F.B.I. man’s car and read through more of the USB files.
It was indeed the proverbial mother lode. Pito kept detailed records on every aspect of Fairmont’s operation, going back to his first meeting with Califano to his most recent first meeting with Peter Rollins. It also included information on the kidnapping of a physicist named Tina Avila to assemble krytrons for the Iranians.
Detailed notes included how best to take over Ali’s company.
There were notes on the locations the Iranians frequented, and where Tina Avila was being held, along with the location of her son, whom they were holding as leverage to make her do their dirty work.
Not included in the notes was information on the murder of Ali’s father.
Blaser had been right.
They found somebody else.
“We can bust them wide open with this,” O’Brien said.
“Maybe they’re holding Ali in the same place as Avila. Says here Club Fugazi.”
“That’s a Califano club.”
“We should get her kid first,” Scott said. He highlighted the address and showed it to O’Brien.
“Know this place?”
“Out near Ocean Beach. Other end of the city. Bit of a drive.”
“I suggest we get started.”
O’Brien gassed up at a corner Shell and turned onto Market, and presently made turns onto Turk and Arguello and eventually Fulton, which, he said, went all the way to Ocean Beach. With the magnetic red cherry light on the roof, O’Brien stayed above the speed limit. They hit mostly green lights on Fulton, but he went through the reds after slowing to check each intersection.
He made a right turn onto the Great Highway and presently pulled over a block away from a single-level home, built on the slope of a hill. Waves crashed off to their left but the ocean and sand, in total darkness, resembled a black abyss.
“It’s a Califano safe house,” O’Brien said.
“The godfather is turning up everywhere,” Stiletto said. “We’re a little light on hardware, though.”
O’Brien grinned and pressed a button under the dash to pop the trunk. Stiletto followed him out.
The air was tinged with salt and the wind carried the ocean mist. Scott felt the moisture settle on his face and neck.
O’Brien lifted the trunk. Secured under the lid were an M-4 carbine and a Remington 870 pump shotgun. O’Brien unzipped a tote containing ammunition for both. Flak vests sat on the trunk floor. O’Brien handed Scott a vest.
“You’re probably better with the M-4 than me,” O’Brien said, as he tightened the Velcro straps of the vest. “You can take that one. It’s full-auto.”
Stiletto removed his topcoat, put on the vest, replaced the coat and took the M-4 from its clamps. He opened the action and felt inside with a pinky finger. A layer of oil coated the action. He grabbed three fully-loaded magazines from the tote. Two went into pockets. The third he locked into the M-4.
O’Brien fed rounds into the 870 and stuffed spare shells into his own pockets. He pumped the 870 and switched on the safety catch.
“Ready?”
Stiletto nodded.
O’Brien gently closed the trunk and the two men started up the road to the house. Scott’s heart rate increased as they neared.
It wasn’t the best way to hit the place, but time was running out and they had no choice. If Fairmont was making overt moves against Ali now, who knew what he was going to do next. They also had no idea how many opponents they faced. The Avila boy could have been moved as well, which meant the house might even be empty. No lights burned inside but even mafia thugs needed sleep. Stiletto stepped onto the empty driveway first, and then O’Brien, and then the spotlight hit them.
The light blazed from an open window. They hit the ground as pistol shots cracked. The rounds whined overhead as Stiletto let off a three-round burst. Glass shattered, a man screamed, and the light went out.
O’Brien jumped up and ran toward the door, firing the shotgun twice. He kicked open the door, entered and rolled left. Stiletto, on his heels, swept the M-4 right-to-left.
They were in the front room, couches, chairs, and a piano. Hallway straight ahead. A gunman near the piano rose with a pistol; Stiletto pinned him to the wall with another burst. The gunman tumbled back into the wall, fell and got tangled in some curtains, leaving a trail of red as he hit the ground.
“F.B.I., give up!”
Another gunman fired twice from a doorway along the hall. Scott fired back, only to miss and tear chunks out of the wall.
The gunman emerged again, this time to pitch a smoke grenade their way. The living room filled with smoke. It stung Stiletto’s eyes and went up his nose. He coughed, dropping low. Somewhere a boy screamed.
Stiletto ran into the smoke only to collide with the hallway gunner. He might as well have tried plowing through a brick wall. He saw enough of the man to know he was not only huge but wore a gas mask. The collision had sent the man’s gun flying, but he was still ready for a fight.
He slammed Stiletto against the wall. Scott exhaled sharply. The gunner tried to wrench the M-4 from Scott’s grasp, but Stiletto held tight, pulling the gunman closer. He raised a knee to hit the thug between the legs, but missed. The gunman kept one hand on the M-4 and grabbed a fistful of Scott’s shirt with the other. He kicked one of Stiletto’s legs out from under him and shoved the agent to the floor, landing on top. He grabbed Scott’s neck and squeezed.
Scott choked, gagging, his eyes still hot and wet from the smoke. He heard the 870 boom from somewhere in the house. The breeze from the open front door began clearing some of the smoke. Through the plastic front of the gas mask, Stiletto watched the gunman’s unblinking eyes go wide as he squeezed harder.
Stiletto let go of the M-4 and grasped the gas mask, yanking it aside, exposing one eye and obscuring the other.
The remaining smoke hit the gunman hard. His one big eye took the brunt of it and he recoiled, clamping a hand over the eye. He tried to adjust the mask but Stiletto pressed the index and middle finger of his right hand together, then blasted a two-finger strike into the gunman’s throat.
The gunman let out a squeal and rolled away. Scott rolled to his knees. The gunman tossed the mask and started to charge again.
The Buck knife snapped open in Scott’s hand. He met the gunman halfway, plunging the knife into him, the blade tearing through clothing to rip deep in
to flesh. Blood spilled onto Stiletto’s hand. The gunman screamed in Scott’s ear. Scott stabbed him again and again and the thug’s dead weight fell against him. He shoved the gunman away. He wiped the bloody knife on the man’s pants, stowed it, and picked up the M-4.
Residual smoke from the grenade hung in the air. Scott leaned against the wall a moment.
An engine roared and something crashed outside.
Stiletto shoved away from the wall and ran deeper into the house.
Toby O’Brien shut his eyes and clamped his free left hand over his nose and mouth as the room filled with smoke. The last thing he saw before the smoke engulfed the room was the doorway to the kitchen--straight ahead, past the piano and corner dining table.
He ran that way, catching a foot on the leg of a chair. He fell face first onto the carpet. A boy screamed from the kitchen. O’Brien jumped up and ran through the doorway.
A fourth gunman hauled a ten-year-old boy from the laundry room adjacent to the kitchen. The man kept the boy close, but the boy twisted out of the man’s grip and for a split-second O’Brien had a kill shot. But as he tightened on the 870’s trigger, the gunman pulled the boy to him again. O’Brien raised the muzzle at the last instant.
The gunman pulled the boy across the tiled floor to a patio door.
The gunman fired at O’Brien and opened the door, dragging the boy outside. O’Brien started to follow but the gunman fired into the house, the Fed hitting the floor as the stingers shredded the cupboard and refrigerator to his right.
O’Brien jumped up and ran outside in time to see the thug carry the boy around the corner.
O’Brien stopped at the corner and peeked around. A shot from the gunman hit the outer wall and spat bits of shrapnel into O’Brien’s face. He yelled, ducking back. A doorway to the garage was midway down the walkway. O’Brien heard the door rumble open. He turned the corner and advanced.
A motor started.
O’Brien ran.
As he cleared the doorway, the black SUV plowed backwards through the garage door, whole pieces clinging to the back of the SUV.
O’Brien fired once, pumped the action, fired again, the Magnum loads hammering the wooden stock into his shoulder. The SUV sank sideways, the front and rear passenger side tires now flat, the vehicle half out of the garage. O’Brien pumped again and took aim. His next blast shattered the windscreen and took off part of the gunman’s head. The SUV idled in reverse, the steel rims of the front wheels screeching on the concrete.