by Ty Patterson
‘Josef,’ he stifled a yawn and then bolted upright, sleep disappearing, when the caller identified himself.
‘Navarro. Alphonse might have told you about me.’
It was eight am when Gruzman saw the group coming out of the exit. A large black man, and an equally large bearded man, were at the head of the group. An older man, handsome, followed them, laughing at something. Three women. Another man, blond, good-looking. And lastly Carter.
Carter was a step behind the group. Privalov’s notes had mentioned that Carter worked with a team. Those were his team members. Gruzman recognized some of the faces from the photographs on the company’s website.
Carter wasn’t joining in his friends’ laughter. He looked neither left, nor right, a distant expression on his face. The blond slapped his back and got a small smile in return.
Gruzman noted the time and the positioning of the men and women as they had exited. He waited for Carter and his people to disappear through the revolving door to their office and then drove away.
He would return, after switching to another van, and keep watch all day.
‘What did he want?’ Zeb asked Josef when the gangbanger called him at nine am and relayed the news.
‘Nothing. He asked me to tell Alphonse that he had reached America.’
‘Why couldn’t he do that himself?’
‘He didn’t have enough credit on his phone. He said he would not be making any more contact now.’
‘Did he say where he was staying? Or where he was heading?’
‘He said nothing else.’
Zeb hung up and held up a notepad to the twins. On it was Navarro’s number.
Werner tracked the phone to Vinegar Hill, in Brooklyn, and narrowed its location down to a block. Meghan brought up a map of the area when Zeb leaned over her shoulder. Low-rent apartment buildings, convenience stores, a car wash. ‘We can’t zero in on the exact building?’
‘Nope.’ She superimposed the phone’s possible location on the block. It looked like the phone could be anywhere in one of two buildings, each of which had three floors.
‘It’s a supercomputer isn’t it?’
‘It’s not a magician,’ she replied, straight-faced.
He moved to the glass front overlooking Columbus Avenue and gazed blindly at the traffic far down below. A brown-colored truck crawled forward, its trailer bending, almost curving, resembling an earthworm. An earthworm burrows. Something lurked at the edge of his mind. Why did I think of that? An earthworm? No. Burrows is significant.
He was moving to the elevator even before his mind had made the connection, snapping his fingers. ‘Roger.’
His friend got to his feet and joined him without uttering a word. They all knew that tone of his.
‘Where?’ Meghan wrapped her headset around her ears. Something was going to happen. She didn’t know what, but if Zeb spoke like that and moved like that, headsets were needed.
‘To Wakehill. To grab Navarro,’ he replied.
Gruzman spotted them as soon they exited the building. Carter and his friend. Moving purposefully. There were a few vehicles parked in front of the building, all of them delivery vehicles or cabs dropping or picking up people. The two men headed to a SUV that was next to a parking meter.
Gruzman had noticed that vehicle and had run its plates against a website in the dark net. He had run the plates of all parked vehicles. It was what he did. Careful. Methodical. Prepared. It was why he was so successful. And alive.
That particular SUV was registered to a security consulting firm in the building. The same firm that Carter ran. They probably park that vehicle in that same spot every day. They can drive out easily without any reversing or maneuvering.
Gruzman was on the opposite side of the Avenue, at an angle, behind them. Avenues were a hundred feet wide in New York. There were some exceptions. Lexington was seventy-five feet wide, while some sections of Madison Avenue had differing width. Columbus Avenue wasn’t an exception. Hundred-foot width. Gruzman was a hundred and twenty feet behind them. A distance at which he could take out a target’s head.
A plan started forming. He could either take out Carter as he left Central Park after his run, or, when he emerged from the building, during the day. Carter would be full of endorphins once he left the park. He would be alert. He would have his friends with him. Later in the day, when he came out of the office, was the better option.
Gruzman would have getaway vehicles stashed all across the city. He would have four vehicles in the immediate vicinity of the office. One on West 60th Street, another on West 58th Street, a third on Tenth Avenue, and the fourth on Eight Avenue. He would have more, on other blocks.
Take the shot from another van. That was easy to set up. The van mounted on the sidewalk, bearing the logo of some utility company. Cones around the van to cut off any foot traffic.
A bench in the rear of the van. The door slightly open, just wide enough to give him a clear sightline to the front of the office. Two silenced rounds. Maybe three, if Carter wasn’t alone. Three seconds to exit from the other side of the van.
Shout, Gunman, and point in a random direction. Yell, Shooter, and flee as if panicked. That was sure to get everyone on the street fleeing and adding to the chaos. Leave everything behind. The weapons, the brass. They didn’t matter.
Each getaway vehicle would be half a minute away at full run. Keep babbling, there’s a shooter. Wear a wig. Get to the first getaway vehicle and drive away. Change in the next getaway vehicle and drive away. Another wardrobe and vehicle change. This time dress up in a pin-stripe suit. Carry a briefcase and wear clear glasses. Drive to Penn and take a train to New Jersey and he would be free. It was doable. Gruzman would do it.
Most killers got caught not because they were bad shooters. It was because they didn’t plan well. Gruzman wasn’t most shooters.
This particular job was rushed. But even so, it was feasible. Gruzman had killed a soldier in another city, in similar conditions. He watched Carter climb into his SUV, blissfully unaware of how close death lurked. He waited till the vehicle disappeared and then he moved out. He didn’t make the mistake of following Carter. That would be a rookie mistake. Gruzman’s rookie days were long past.
He would watch one more day and take the shot the following day.
Chapter 25
‘What’s the hurry?’ Roger eyed a passing brunette. So what if he had a girlfriend and was serious about her? He was merely appreciating beauty, in the same way that women eyed him.
Zeb wove around a slower moving cab which sounded its horn in protest, before replying. ‘Navarro will go to the ground soon. Or he will be asked to.’
‘You know this how?’
‘That’s the only way they can maintain radio and online silence. The fighters stop using their usual phones. Maybe they are surrounded by watchers or are given secure phones. At some predetermined time, they set out to the venue. Maybe there’s a code there too. It’s how I would set the fights up.’
‘So why are we hotfooting it to Vinegar Hill. He’s already gone to ground.’
‘I figure we have time. A few hours. Josef was very quick to call us. Navarro would have called him first. Ties to the gang and all that. Only then he would call the Death Club.’
‘And if we are wrong?’ Roger flashed a wide smile at a woman in a car while they waited at a light.
‘We’ll have to find some other way to get to Navarro.’
They reached Vinegar Hill an hour later and he slowed as he entered the neighborhood, near the corner on Hudson and Plymouth. Straight ahead, to the left, was an industrial unit. Vapor curled up from a vent on top of the building. To their right, ahead, a couple of concrete chimneys rose high in the sky. Remnants of a time when the city was a manufacturing hub.
The target buildings were to their immediate left. Shuttered stores at street level. Red-bricked walls. Screened windows facing the street. No heads at the windows.
‘No one on the street. Ha
rdly any traffic,’ Roger commented. ‘It’s not really a residential area. Neat. If anyone was looking for him … this wouldn’t be first choice.’
Zeb didn’t reply. There were a few vehicles parked on the street. A truck. A van. A Chevy. A Nissan. It was the Chevy that had attracted his attention.
It had darkened windows and appeared to be uninhabited but for the almost undetectable trembling of its exhaust pipe. Its engine was running. That meant occupants.
He pointed a thumb at the vehicle as they drove past, while Roger pulled out his phone and laughed uproariously at some unsaid joke.
‘Watchers?’ he asked when Zeb had turned a corner.
‘I guess so. Meghan?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Call Navarro’s number.’
Zeb parked a block away and the two of them returned on foot, their jacket collars rolled up, ball caps pulled low over their heads, hands jammed in pockets. Zeb on one side of the street, Roger on the other.
They walked without haste, just two men loitering. Their sneakers were scuffed. Roger’s jeans were stained. They wore shades. No self-respecting loiterer was without shades. Their shades couldn’t be bought in a store, however.
The stems had nano-cameras fitted in them and they projected the rear-view onto the lens. They could broadcast the feed to Werner. They were one of many surveillance toys Broker had devised.
‘You’re entering the block, with the buildings straight ahead of you, aren’t you?’ Meghan. Tracking them through the GPS sensors in their shoes and jackets.
‘Uh uh. Check out a Chevy.’ Zeb recited the number for her. ‘It seems to be keeping watch.’
‘Beth?’ He heard her pass on the number to her sister before she came back to him.
‘Navarro’s in the first building as you approach it. On the first floor. Can’t be more precise than that. There’s good news. The first floor has only three units. All three are office spaces. All empty. I suspect Navarro is hiding in one of them.’
‘Approaches?’
‘There’s a parking lot between that building and the one before it. Can you see it?’
Zeb leaned against a parked truck, out of sight of the Chevy, and looked. Roger slowed to a stop on the other side. He took cover behind another vehicle.
‘Yeah. I can. A chain linked fence on this side of the street.’
‘Since when did that stop you?’
‘She’s got a point,’ Roger chortled.
‘Get in that lot. You’ll come to the side of the target building. Scale its wall somehow and you’ll come to a window on the first floor. Break it open and you are in.’
‘Sounds easy when you lay it out like that.’
‘Zeb,’ Meghan, patiently explaining, ‘you’ve been in Sudan. Afghanistan. Iraq. There isn’t a hotspot in the world you haven’t been to. A break-in and entry is putting you off?’
Zeb vaulted over the fence easily, while Roger kept watch, and when his friend joined him, bent low, beneath the windows of the parked vehicles and ran to the side of the target building.
He looked behind. At the far end, a few windows looked their way. He shrugged at Roger. They had to take their chances. Clare could always work it out with the NYPD if someone reported them.
The target window was fifteen feet high. A narrow alley separated its wall from the parking lot. The alley was empty. Nothing to offer any height.
‘There’s a door,’ Roger murmured and jerked his head at the far end. There was a door. It was the same red color as the bricks which was why Zeb hadn’t spotted it. It was locked from the inside.
Roger sighed when Zeb looked quizzically at him. ‘Why does it have to be me?’
He went to the bottom of the window and bent as if tying his shoelaces. Zeb sprinted towards him, levered himself off Roger’s back, and leapt high in the air. His left elbow smashed into the window. His wrist clamped on the ledge and for a second he hung in the air. He wriggled his body inside and entered the building, Glock out, eyes seeking.
No alarms, was his first thought. No movement. He was in a vast hall which had scattered furniture. Desks. Broken chairs. A white board. No people. He moved deeper into the hall, to a door which opened into a hallway and led to more office units
A staircase ran down to the ground floor. Concrete steps. Metal handrail. No cameras.
He went down the hallway, to the ground floor and to the door that separated Roger and him. It was locked. His toolkit came out, and a few minutes later, the door opened.
‘Took you long enough,’ Roger complained, but his eyes were alert, his gun was out, too.
They climbed to the first floor and looked at the various units. Time was important. They didn’t know what would happen next. What the Death Club had planned for Navarro. Whether he was even here.
‘Call that number again,’ Zeb whispered to Meghan and held his finger up to hush Roger.
They listened and at the far end, they heard a faint ringing. A shuffling from an office unit that overlooked the street.
The office unit had a number on its wooden door to identify itself. The door was locked. Zeb held two fingers up. Folded one. Folded the second, and the two of them crashed their shoulders against the door. The door splintered and gave way. Zeb started sectioning automatically.
Wide room. Another inner room. Nothing towards the street-side. No furniture. No person. To the rear. A bed. A man. Whirling around. Diving towards something. His hand coming up. A gun.
His face catching the light.
Navarro!
‘Navarro?’ Zeb confronted him authoritatively.
A shadow in the inner room. Zeb jerked his head. Roger walloped the bearded stranger who was rushing out, brought him down and subdued him.
Navarro’s gun hand slowed, his head whipping from side to side. ‘Who–’
Zeb’s knife buried deep inside Navarro’s shoulder.
Roger strode to the window and peered out carefully. ‘Those dudes haven’t moved.’
‘Forget about them. Chloe and I have eyes on them. We are parked way down the street, and have a drone in the air. They haven’t moved from the Chevy. Nor have they reported anything. We have eyes and ears on them,’ Bear said.
All their drones had audio surveillance gear that canceled out ambient noise and could hone in on a specific building. Or a vehicle.
‘You were following us?’ Roger moved to the other side of the window and searched for Bear’s vehicle.
‘Yeah. The thermal imager lit when you came near the window. Get back to Navarro. Leave those watchers to us.’
Navarro was a wanted criminal in Colombia. He was considered one of the most dangerous men to cross, in that country. His toughness didn’t last long; he began squealing the moment Zeb buried his knife deep in his thigh.
His howls were muffled by the tape across his mouth, his body thrashed in a desperate attempt to get away. His companion was still out, knocked out by Roger.
‘I thought he was a hard man,’ Roger crouched next to Zeb, his bearing contemptuous.
‘He is. When he has a gun or knife in his hand. When his gang is behind him. You think he’s ready to talk?’
‘You ready, Navarro?’ Roger asked the gangbanger solicitously. ‘You’ll shout if I remove your tape?’
Navarro shook his head, his eyes pleading, sweat streaming down his face and disappearing under his Tee.
‘Looks like he’s ready.’
Navarro didn’t know who was behind the Death Club. He knew its IP address however, a server on the dark net that the twins immediately accessed, using Navarro’s credentials. The Colombian had heard of the underground club from another gang and he had joined it a year back. He spoke of the verification process for fighters, the organization of the fights, and the online betting portal and the video feeds.
The office had been arranged for him by the club, and it communicated with the Colombian via messages on the website.
Stop using your phone. Don’t make contact with a
nyone. Stay in the office for further instructions. Use the phone in your room. You will get the address on it. The club’s commands were all there, on the Colombian’s page.
‘What happens if you don’t follow them?’ Zeb asked him.
‘They kill us,’ Navarro winced as he tried to ease his wounded thigh. ‘Those two men,’ he pointed his elbow at the window, ‘are from the club. There’s always someone watching or following. They know everything that happens. Anyone who ignores instructions, he dies.’
Zeb inspected the phone the club had left for Navarro, a basic model with a keypad and a small screen. There was no call history. No stored numbers. No messages.
‘How do they know what happens here? Inside?’
‘There’s a listening device in that phone. They know everything.’
‘It’s not working,’ Chloe spoke in their earpieces. ‘We jammed the signal as soon as you entered the parking lot.’
‘Smart,’ Roger acknowledged.
‘Smarter than you, for sure,’ she sniggered.
‘Who’s that guy?’ Zeb asked Navarro, pointing at the unconscious man.
‘That’s Loya. My driver. We take one person along with us. In case we can’t drive, afterwards.’
‘And if you lose?’
‘I still live. It’s only in the last fight that the loser dies. Killed by the winner. I wasn’t planning to lose.’
His eyes flicked from Roger to Zeb, alarm gathering in them at the sight of their grim faces. ‘Those are the rules,’ he whined defensively.
‘What about the prize money?’
‘We have an insurance policy. It’s in my messages. The final winner gets cash. Everyone else gets the money through the policy.’