by Ty Patterson
Bwana and Roger arrived. Bwana shrugged his shoulders when Zeb looked askance at them. ‘No one’s got a clue,’ he growled.
‘You left anyone alive?’ he asked his friend.
They exchanged a look he couldn’t read.
‘Only those who matter.’
Zeb went back to making his calls. To contacts in the intelligence world, and in criminal enterprises around the world. All came back with an unequivocal no. Not a whisper on who the killers could be. Or whoever was behind it.
When it was late evening, he rose and stretched and surveyed his crew. They were all on headsets or on screens. Life of a special ops team could be surprisingly mundane. Sure, there were bursts of action. But there was a lot of legwork.
Meghan felt his gaze, looked up, smiled briefly and went back to writing algos. There wasn’t any of the light-hearted humor of previous investigations. This one was different. Avichai Levin was a friend. He was like family.
Chang’s call came just as they were breaking up, at nine p.m. Zeb took the call, and when he hung up, he felt everyone’s eyes on him.
They could see something in his body, even though his face was as impassive as ever.
‘They’ve found four bodies. All shot. Single bullet through the temple.’
Chapter 9
It had been the easiest job the assassin had ever undertaken. He was used to killing difficult targets. There was one time he’d had to take out a businessman as he sat in his car, waiting for a light to change. In Cairo, amidst surrounding traffic.
He had created a diversion. He had made an ambulance explode, and while people ran in terror, he’d slid inside his mark’s car and executed him. There was another time he’d had to kill a mobster when he was with his mistress. The crime lord was in his security compound. The assassin had penetrated the security setup and had finished the mobster. And had left the mistress alive.
He had chuckled in disbelief when Senior and Junior, the patriarch’s kids, had approached him. ‘You want me to hand off a kill job to another set of killers?’
‘That’s precisely what we want,’ they had told him. The assassin had used the killers before. The two parties knew one another. But on all previous occasions, the assassin had used the brothers as a diversion. He had done the wet work himself.
‘And when it’s over, you have to finish them,’ Senior carried on.
Now, it made sense.
The job had gone smoothly. The assassin had helped by inserting his vehicle in between Shira Levin’s and that of her protection detail. The killer had been impressed by the brothers’ efficiency. That sword cut showed hundreds of hours of practice.
It’s good we are on the same side. He’d watched the execution go down and had fled the scene like other onlookers. Of course, he was wearing a prosthetic face! He wasn’t an amateur. He’d met the brothers under an abandoned bridge in the Bronx, when it was evening, the fourth day after Shira Levin’s killing.
The bridge was in Van Cortlandt Park and was once part of the Putnam Line, a railway line that ran from the Bronx to Brewster, New York.
It was a splendid location for an execution. The smell of dead and decaying organic matter, the rust and peeling paint of the structure, the sound of distant traffic…all that gave the execution the right atmospherics. There were those thirteen stone structures nearby: stone samples that had been placed there to test their durability, so that the right ones could be used to build Grand Central.
Those stone pillars could act as oversized gravestones for the four brothers.
The assassin dealt in death, but even he could see the poetic elegance in the location he had chosen.
There wasn’t much conversation between him and the brothers. Mumbled words. Appreciation from the assassin. Thanks from the eldest brother. The assassin opened a briefcase to show stacks of bills. One of the brothers inspected the bills, tested some under a pocket UV light, and nodded his head. The briefcase exchanged hands.
The assassin leaned forward to shake the eldest brother’s hand, held on to it firmly, and shot him in the head with his left hand. He swiveled smoothly to shoot the rest of them, who were taken totally unaware. Unprepared.
Good. But not as good as me, the assassin sniggered, and departed into the depths of the park.
* * *
The park was taped off when Zeb, Broker, and the twins reached it. Chang was there, his face pale under the floodlights. Pizaka was present too, as immaculate as ever, his shades catching the lights and reflecting them.
‘Maybe he thinks it’s a modeling shoot,’ Beth snickered.
Meghan hushed her as they ducked under the tape and were stopped by a burly cop.
‘Let them through,’ Chang called out and the beckoned them to the bottom of the bridge.
‘Used to be a railway line. Long before any of us were born. Now it’s a walking trail.’
The bodies lay randomly. One of them was on its back. Two on their sides. One facedown. All of them were in black. Loose track pants. Black tees. Black sneakers.
Zeb knelt beside one body and looked at it silently. Clean shot. Not from up close, but not a sniper kill either. There isn’t any place for a sniper hide in the park. He looked around at the darkened park, away from the oasis of the lights.
There were walking trails in the park, from what he could recollect. Maybe a sniper could burrow himself in the ground and make a hide, but he doubted it. The sightlines wouldn’t be good enough.
‘Who found the bodies?’
‘Runners. A bunch of them. They go running in the dark, with those lights around their foreheads.’ Chang shook his head as if anyone who ran was insane. Chang didn’t believe in running unless it was absolutely necessary. Cars had been invented for a purpose.
‘One of them thought he heard the shots when they were some distance away. But couldn’t be sure.’
‘What time?’
‘Eight p.m. We got here an hour later. You want to question them?’ Chang jerked a shoulder at a bunch of men dressed in tracksuits. They were hopping from one leg to another, keeping warm, drinking fluids from flasks.
‘You’ve taken their statements?’
‘Yeah. We kept them back in case you want to talk to them.’
‘Let them go.’ There isn’t anything new they can tell me.
‘They’re the same, aren’t they?’ Meghan whispered from beside him.
He knew what she meant. Banh’s killer brothers.
‘Yeah. Someone is tidying up.’
‘You know them?’ Pizaka asked sharply, having overheard them.
‘They could be Shira Levin’s killers.’ Zeb rose, brushing away dirt from his hands.
Pizaka froze, as did Chang and a couple of cops who were close enough to hear.
They crowded around Zeb and the twins, questions on their faces.
‘You’re sure?’
‘How do you know?’
‘You’re holding out on us!’
Zeb held his hand up to stem the flood of questions.
‘I’m not sure. That’s why I said they could be the killers.’ He briefed them as much as he could. Banh, who Chang and Pizaka were aware of, from the snitch’s call. His killer brothers.
‘When did you get this information?’ Pizaka demanded. ‘The LAPD told me they hadn’t interviewed Banh yet. They had called him, but he hadn’t turned up.’
‘Yesterday. I was in LA.’ Hall must have his reasons for not mentioning Banh turning up.
‘You met Banh? And he just told you?’ Pizaka again. Challenging. Angry.
‘Yeah. I asked him politely. You should try it sometime.’ He’ll blow his stack if I tell him the real story.
‘You—’
‘Enough,’ Chang snapped. ‘These men are dead. How Carter got that info doesn’t matter.’ Carter, because there were other cops present. Formalities had to be maintained. Zeb and his crew were consultants to the NYPD in cases where both the Agency and the NYPD had an interest.
&n
bsp; ‘Your theory?’ Chang turned back to Zeb when his partner kept silent.
‘Good possibility these were her killers. Whoever is behind them is cleaning up.’
‘Go back to the scene tomorrow,’ Chang ordered a bunch of cops. ‘Show their photographs and see if anyone remembers these men. Talk to those dudes who captured the killing on their phones.’
‘Don’t think we’ll get far. The men were masked at the kill site.’ Zeb ran a hand through his hair in frustration and stood aside for the photographer to do his job.
* * *
Cops, the assassin sneered as he watched the scene from several hundred yards away. He lay in a hollow in the ground, his body covered by leaves and rotting branches, his face masked, NVGs pressed to his eyes.
Cops had searched the crime scene, in widening circles, but they hadn’t searched far enough. The assassin lay outside their search periphery, safely undetected, and observed the proceedings with quiet glee.
If there was one fault he had, it was that he was supremely confident of his own abilities. He knew it was a fault. A killer couldn’t be too careful. But I haven’t met anyone better than me.
Senior and Junior had wanted him to hang around at the bridge and see who showed up. Hence, he had stayed, though it wasn’t standard operating procedure for him. He watched the brown-haired man approach the bodies and kneel over them.
The women with him looked like sisters, and the older man didn’t retch or turn green at the sight of the bodies. Neither did the brown-haired man. They have seen dead people before.
He wished he could hear the conversation, but had to resort to lip-reading. That didn’t help much, since the brown-haired man, who did most of the talking for the civilians, had his back to the assassin. What was more, his body covered that of the lead cops. Which meant he caught nothing of the discussions.
He took photographs and sent them to Senior and Junior and then melted away, congratulating himself on another clean kill.
* * *
‘Have you seen it?’ Junior called Senior as soon as he received the assassin’s message.
‘Yes. It’s the same man who visited Banh.’
‘He’s a threat. We should set the assassin on him.’
‘Not yet. We need to know who he is. Find out what he knows. We shouldn’t kill needlessly.’
Junior hung up and stared into his glass of wine. Papa was right. Senior was soft.
Maybe it was time he, Junior, did something, and take the lead in the test.
Chapter 10
Zeb drove them back to their office, the twins conversing softly with each other, Broker looking pensively out in the night.
‘I thought it was a terrorist attack, initially,’ he broke his silence when he felt Zeb’s eyes. ‘There are enough crazies out there, and Avichai has enemies. Lot of them.’
‘You’re not sure now?’
‘Danged right, I’m not sure.’
‘Maybe Avichai will have something for us tomorrow.’ Zeb knew he didn’t sound hopeful. This looked like it would turn out to be a long, frustrating investigation. They had experience with those, but not many of them had been so personal.
* * *
‘We were estranged,’ Avichai Levin told them the next day. He was dressed in a crisp white shirt and a muted red tie over khaki slacks. His brown shoes gleamed; his hair was immaculate. It was his eyes that were the giveaway. They showed he hadn’t slept much. There was something else swirling in their depths.
Guilt? Zeb brushed aside his thought and listened, not surprised by Levin’s revelation. He had figured it would be something like that. Or else Levin would have told me that his daughter was in New York. He would have asked me to keep an eye on her.
‘You know, she lived here. New York was her home. Did her undergraduate at New York University. MBA from Stanford.’
Zeb knew. The twins had played back Shira Levin’s life for him. He didn’t interrupt Levin. Neither did the twins, nor Broker. Let him speak.
‘She worked for a few years in the corporate world before joining her friends. They had started this club while in college. They decided to make it an investment firm. They had connections. They were smart. My Shira…’ Levin looked away for a second.
‘Once she set her mind on something, she went all out on getting it. Like that music thing. One day she decided she wanted to get into it. She goes and gets into the best music school in the country.’ Gone was the head of the Mossad. In his place was a proud father.
‘She didn’t like my job. She wasn’t a pacifist or anything like that. She knew the value of a strong intelligence arm. It’s just that she thought I played God. She thought talking, negotiating, was a better way to secure end goals.
‘She grew up here.’ Levin pointed out the window of his hotel room, as if that explained it all. And it did. Outside was downtown Manhattan. Millionaires and billionaires rubbed shoulders with tourists. Deal making was the city’s lifeblood. It was a different world from Levin’s.
‘She wanted no part of my life. She resented the protection detail. I forced them on her.’
Meghan discreetly curled her forefinger and thumb in a circle. Zeb got what she meant. The two bodyguards had checked out. Nothing suspicious there.
Levin seemed to realize he was rambling and got himself together. ‘You’ve already got the list of threats I received. Shira didn’t get any. If she did, she didn’t tell me.’
‘What about her private equity firm, sir?’ Beth asked him.
‘I’ve met most of her board members. Naturally, I checked all of them out. Shira was furious with me when she found out.’ A small smile appeared on his lips and faded quickly.
‘She asked me to investigate that Israeli firm. She was worried its technology could be misused. She wanted me to check its directors and senior managers out. There was nothing there. It’s a good company. Principled. Shira made a good investment there.’
‘She didn’t come to you with anything else, sir?’ Beth probed. You didn’t have father-daughter conversations with her? Her unspoken words hung in the air.
‘No.’ Levin’s faint smile appeared again. He knew what Beth had asked. ‘We didn’t have that kind of relationship. She said the day I quit would be the best day of her life.
‘I didn’t get to tell her I was proud of her.’ His voice cracked. He rose, went to the bathroom, and when he returned, his eyes were hard. Those of Avichai Levin, Director of Mossad.
‘I sent those photographs to my people,’ he told them, referring to the Vietnamese kill team. Chang had emailed him the images the previous night. ‘They are not in our database, but we will keep looking. Someone should talk to Banh.’
His meaning was clear. If the NYPD didn’t, he would.
‘You promised to stay out of this,’ Zeb reminded him.
Levin stared daggers at him, and his shoulders drooped fractionally when Zeb didn’t look away. ‘I’ll keep my promise. But my people are available. You know that.’
‘I know.’
The twins went back to questioning Levin about his daughter. About her social life.
‘She didn’t have any. I am sure of that. Her protection detail reported back to me. They would have told me. That firm was her life.’
‘Why did she share her apartment with others? She was wealthy enough to buy her own.’
‘That was my Shira. Money meant nothing to her. You know, her roommates were students at NYU. She paid most of the rent. She tried to help people out wherever and whenever she could.’
A discreet knock sounded and an aide thrust his head in. ‘They’re here, sir.’
‘Show them in.’
Zeb rose when two women entered the room. One was blonde, the other Asian. Japanese, I think, going by her features. They must be from TKWC.
‘Holly Nicholson…and Mulan Yao?’ Levin guessed as he introduced the entrants.
‘Yes, sir. Mulan is based in Tokyo. She looks after our Asia-Pac investments.’ Holly smiled brie
fly in Zeb’s direction. Her gaze lingered on the twins and Broker and then settled on Levin.
‘Zeb, Broker, Beth and Meghan,’ Levin said, reading the question in her eyes. ‘They are good friends. You can say anything in front of them. It will remain in confidence.’ He didn’t elaborate. ‘You’ve come a long way, Mulan.’
Zeb suppressed a smile. Avichai Levin had a reputation for being abrupt. He got to the point. Didn’t waste time on niceties, and expected others to do the same. His daughter’s death hasn’t changed any of that. He wants to know why they’ve come.
Holly expressed her condolences, simply, elegantly, and Zeb saw Levin was impressed. No drawn-out eulogy. Just heartfelt words that showed how much Shira had meant to her and the firm.
‘Mulan will be taking over her role, sir.’
Zeb felt Meghan’s eyes on him, knew what she was thinking. Mulan Yao will have to be checked out.
‘You might know, Shira was on the board of three companies. We were considering bids for all of them. She told you any of that, sir?’
‘No. But I know of the firms she was handling.’
‘Two of those companies had three bidders each. The Israeli firm had offers from a Japanese corporation, a Chinese one, and an American one. The robotics company had bids from a Japanese company, a Chinese conglomerate, and a European firm.’
Levin leaned forward. ‘Those—’
‘The two Japanese and the two Chinese bidders were all separate entities, sir. No connection to one another,’ Holly Nicholson said, anticipating his question.
‘The thing is, the bidding was getting nasty. The American and the European firms had tabled the lowest offer, but we were planning to go with them. We liked them. There were shared principles. But the Japanese and the Chinese weren’t taking no for an answer.’
‘They used to call Shira at night. Their representatives. They wanted to know when we would take up their offers. They said they were prepared to outbid anyone,’ Mulan cut in smoothly. Her English was perfect, with only slight traces of a Japanese accent.