End Game

by Alex Lukeman

"In case you have any doubts, remember that Moretti is responsible for countless murders, child trafficking, drug distribution, loan sharking and just about every other kind of lowlife criminal behavior you can think of. He'd cut your throat for fun. The people who work for him are the scum of the earth. Not to mention the fact that he sold nuclear bombs to terrorists."

  "Just asking," Ronnie said.

  "Ideas on how we do it? "

  "We need a van," Lamont said.

  "What are you thinking?" Nick said.

  "We run him off the road, take care of the guards, throw a bag over his head and throw him in the back of the van. Then we drive away to some quiet place where we can ask our questions."

  "What if he doesn't want to answer our questions?" Ronnie asked.

  "Then we frighten him. He has to believe terrible things will happen to him if he doesn't tell us what we want to know."

  "Works for me," Ronnie said.

  "Let me make some calls," Nick said.

  Chapter 18

  Harker came through with a Chevy van. It was perfect for their need, the kind of anonymous van no one paid any attention to. The color was dark blue. Nick would've preferred black, but at least it wasn't white.

  They drove to the restaurant, then followed the logical route to Moretti's mansion. It timed out to a little more than twenty minutes. They headed back to town.

  "Might be less at night," Lamont said. "Less traffic."

  "Not a lot of places to do this," Ronnie said.

  "We passed a strip mall about a half mile before we got on the toll road," Nick said. "It might work. Let's check it out."

  They exited the highway and drove back the way they'd come. They came to the strip mall and stopped across the street. The buildings were run down. It was obvious the place had seen better days. Several buildings were vacant, with "for rent" signs in the windows

  "Tattoos, Manny's pizza, a laundromat, and a second-hand clothing store," Lamont said. "A locksmith. Couple of cars parked. Doesn't look like there's much happening."

  "Check out the lights in the parking lot," Ronnie said. "It looks like two of them are broken."

  "The laundromat looks closed," Nick said.

  "The mall of the damned," Lamont said. "Make a good movie title."

  "Okay, we'll do it here," Nick said. "We can drive them off the road into the lot. There's not going to be anybody around in those stores at night."

  "Hell," Lamont said. "There's nobody around them now."

  That evening they left the hotel well before Moretti was due to arrive at the steakhouse. They found a place where they could park and observe the entrance. Lamont was driving .

  They settled down to wait. The smell of food drifted through the warm, night air. Cars pulling up in front of the restaurant were met by two valets who took the keys and moved the cars to a lot.

  "Man, that smells good," Ronnie said.

  "Have some chips," Lamont said.

  He passed a bag to him.

  "Thanks. Not a steak, but better than nothing."

  He popped a chip in his mouth

  "What kind of car has he got?" Lamont asked.

  "A Cadillac. Black."

  "Make a change from all those Mercedes and Audis the valets are handling over there."

  "High dollar eats," Lamont said.

  At five minutes before nine, Moretti's Cadillac pulled up to the front of the restaurant. A valet opened the rear door for him. Moretti got out, followed by his wife and a bodyguard. The three of them went into the restaurant. The driver refused the valet and parked the car himself. He got out, leaned against the fender, and lit a cigarette.

  "He's carrying," Ronnie said. "You can see the bulge under his jacket."

  "Okay," Nick said. "Just two, plus Moretti and his wife. The driver and one bodyguard."

  "What we do about the wife?" Lamont asked.

  "We can't take her with us. As soon as we open the doors on the car, I'll shoot her and Moretti with this."

  Nick took a tranquilizer gun from his pocket. It fired darts tipped with a fast acting sedative that would knock someone out within seconds. They had used them before.

  "Maybe we should use that against the guards."

  "Too risky," Nick said. "We're going to run them off the road. If they're any good, they'll have their guns out before they stop moving. Ronnie, you take the first guy out of the car. Lamont, you go for the other one. My guess is it will be the driver. "

  "Copy that."

  "Suppressors on the weapons. It's close quarters. We want as little noise as possible."

  A little before eleven, Moretti's driver got back in the car and pulled around to the entrance.

  "Here we go," Lamont said.

  The mob boss and his wife and bodyguard came out, got into the waiting car and drove off.

  "Showtime," Ronnie said.

  There was still traffic on the streets, though not as much as there'd been earlier. They passed a police car idling on a side street. Moretti's driver kept to the speed limit, taking his time. They followed at a steady distance behind.

  "Put the masks on," Nick said.

  They pulled ski masks over their faces.

  "Mall's coming up in a block," Ronnie said.

  "Now," Nick said.

  Lamont hit the gas. The Chevy wasn't a Ferrari, but it had plenty of power and jumped forward. As Moretti's car came even with the empty mall, Lamont came alongside, pulled a little ahead and swerved into the Cadillac with a loud crunch of metal. The Cadillac went up over the curb and into the partially lit parking lot. It hit one of the light poles, and came to a stop. Lamont slammed on the brakes. Steam rose from the crumpled radiator of the Cadillac.

  "Go!" Nick shouted.

  They piled out of the van. The doors on the Cadillac opened. The first man out was the driver. He had a gun in his hand and raised it. Ronnie shot him, three quick shots. Even with the suppressor the sound was loud. He fell back onto the parking lot. The second man ducked down behind the Cadillac, then popped back up and got off two shots before Lamont took him out .

  Moretti was out of the car with a gun in his hand. Nick shot him in the neck with a dart. He staggered, tried to raise the pistol and fell forward onto his face. Inside the car, his wife was screaming. Nick ducked down, and shot her through the open door with a second dart. The screaming stopped.

  "Get him in the van," Nick said.

  The three of them picked Moretti up and threw him into the back.

  "Heavy son of a bitch," Ronnie said.

  Nick got in with the unconscious mob boss.

  "Let's get out of here," he said.

  Lamont was already behind the wheel. He backed away, shifted into drive and headed out of the city. Nick bound Moretti's hands and feet with zip ties and pulled a cloth bag over his head.

  Sirens sounded somewhere in the distance.

  Chapter 19

  They drove until they were well past the city limits and out in the country. The land was flat, dotted with oil pumps. Most of them were unmoving, dark shapes on the plain. Ronnie pointed at an access road with a gate. The area was deserted.

  "Over there. That looks like it would work," Ronnie said.

  Lamont turned onto the road and stopped at the gate. Ronnie got out. The gate was shut with a chain and padlock. He took out his pistol, stepped back and fired at the lock. A second shot did it. He pulled away the chain, opened the gate, and got back in the van.

  He drove into the fields and parked behind one of the silent pumps. If anyone bothered to look from the road, all they would see would be a dark shape behind another dark shape. Ronnie opened the sliding door on the side of the van.

  "Help me get him out," Nick said.

  They manhandled Moretti out of the van and dropped him on the ground. A muffled groan came from under the bag on his head.

  "Coming around," Nick said.

  He bent down, pulled off the hood, and slapped Moretti in the face a few times.

  "Wake up, Mo
retti."

  "Huh. What…"

  Moretti's eyes opened. For a moment he looked confused, then his eyes focused on Nick. As he realized what was happening, his expression changed. Nick saw the face of a man who had made a pact with evil, a predator.

  "Whoever you are, you're dead," Moretti said.

  Nick slapped him again .

  "Shut up, Moretti. Think about where you are. None of your muscle is here to help you. Nobody's coming. If you want to live, you listen to me and answer my questions."

  "Fuck you."

  "I don't have time for this. Lamont, give me your knife."

  "Why don't you let me do it, boss," Lamont said.

  Lamont had a terrible scar that ran across his forehead and down the side of his nose, the aftermath of a wound he'd gotten in Iraq. When he put on his bad face, he looked like someone's nightmare from hell.

  He bent down over Moretti and let him take a good look. He took out his knife, a carefully honed folding blade. He held it over Moretti and opened it slowly. The blade clicked into place.

  "Where do you want me to start, boss?"

  "Who hired you to steal those bombs, Moretti?" Nick asked.

  "Fuck you."

  "Kind of a limited vocabulary," Ronnie said.

  "Start with an ear," Nick said.

  Lamont took the point of his knife and touched it to Moretti's right ear. With a flick of the blade he made a small cut in the edge, just enough to draw blood. Moretti winced. His face darkened with rage.

  "Hurts, doesn't it?" Nick said. "Let me explain something to you. My friend here is going to start cutting away pieces of you, one little piece at a time. You know how that works, don't you? You enjoy hurting people with a blade, isn't that right? So you know how long it can take before somebody bleeds out. Hours of excruciating pain."

  Moretti's eyes were wild. He looked from Nick to Lamont. Lamont held up the blade and grinned at him, a terrible grin. Beads of perspiration appeared on Moretti's forehead.

  Nick continued .

  "We don't want to hear you scream, so we're going to stuff something in your mouth when we're doing the cutting. When we pull out the gag, you'll have a chance to answer a question. If you don't, the gag goes back in and we'll cut away a little bit more of you. You understand? And if you say 'fuck you' one more time, we'll start right away."

  "Okay, okay, what do you want to know?"

  "See? That wasn't so hard." He patted Moretti on the shoulder. "You just made a good choice. You were hired to steal a shipment of bombs. Who hired you?"

  "I don't know."

  Nick shook his head. "That's not a good answer, Gino. Lamont, give me something to stuff in his mouth."

  "Wait, wait. I only know his first name."

  "Which is?"

  "Ruslan. He said his name was Ruslan."

  "What does this Ruslan look like?"

  "A little guy, maybe five eight or nine. He had a beard."

  "What kind of beard? Long? Short?"

  "Short and trimmed, you know? Neat. He wasn't one of us."

  "What do you mean, one of us?"

  "He had an accent. He didn't look like us. Like Americans."

  "This guy is really a piece of work," Ronnie said.

  "How much did he pay you?" Nick said.

  "The deal was ten million, five up front, five in diamonds when we delivered the goods. The bastard double crossed me."

  "What was he going to do with those bombs?"

  "How the fuck would I know? I didn't give a shit what he wanted to do with them. It was a business transaction."

  "A business transaction? You sold nukes to a terrorist and you call it a business transaction? You're a traitor, Moretti."

  "I didn't know he was a terrorist. It was just business. "

  Nick continued asking questions, but after a while it was clear Moretti didn't know anything else that would help them.

  Nick and the others stepped away to talk, leaving Moretti on the ground.

  "What do you want to do with him?" Ronnie asked.

  "Let's leave him for the coyotes," Lamont said.

  "Might be too good for him," Ronnie said.

  "You know we can't do that," Nick said. "I'll call Harker. We'll turn him over to DHS and let them handle it."

  While they were talking, Moretti managed to get his hands free. In his pocket was the knife he liked to use when he was hurting people. He cut the ties on his feet and got up, filled with rage. Moretti had always had a problem with anger, the kind of uncontrolled anger that overrode reason.

  No one treats me like that.

  The three men who had humiliated him were standing some distance away, talking. They weren't paying attention to him. He crouched down behind the rusting pump and moved toward the group. He focused on the tall man who had been questioning him. The man's back was to him

  Moretti took a deep breath and ran toward Nick, the knife ready to strike.

  "Behind you!" Ronnie yelled.

  He drew his pistol. As Nick started to turn, Ronnie fired twice, then a third time. Moretti staggered forward, still trying to reach Nick. Ronnie fired again and Moretti went down. He twitched and lay still.

  "Damn," Lamont said. "Where did that knife come from? I patted him down. And how'd he get out of those zip ties?"

  "I guess we'll never know," Nick said. He looked down at Moretti. "A stupid man."

  "Couldn't happen to a nicer guy," Lamont said.

  "Leave him," Nick said. "Let's get out of here."

  Chapter 20

  "Ruslan? What kind of name is that?" Elizabeth asked.

  "I don't know, Director." Nick's voice sounded harsh on the speakerphone. "We didn't get much more out of him. Only that he was a little guy, a foreigner, and that he had a beard."

  "A little guy with a beard and ten million dollars to buy nuclear bombs," Stephanie said.

  "Your average terrorist doesn't have ten million," Nick said. "Who's on the radar that has that kind of money to spend?"

  "The usual suspects list isn't long at the moment," Elizabeth said. "Maybe Iran, or North Korea. Al Qaeda's financing has taken a big hit, but I suppose it could be them."

  "Ruslan doesn't sound Arabic," Stephanie said.

  Ruslan is a common name for men in Chechnya.

  "Chechnya?" Elizabeth said.

  Do you want me to repeat myself, Elizabeth?

  "That won't be necessary, Freddie."

  "That fits with the video from Missouri," Stephanie said. "The way the driver looked. Not quite Middle Eastern, but somewhere farther east."

  "Like the Caucasus," Elizabeth said. "Nick, when are you coming back?"

  "We're at the airport now. We should be back in a few hours."

  "Good. Come in when you arrive."

  "Copy that, Director."

  Nick hung up.

  "If this man Ruslan is from Chechnya, it opens up a can of worms," Elizabeth said.

  Why would humans put worms in a can?

  "We don't actually do that, Freddie. It's an expression that means we've discovered something new and unpleasant. "

  Worms are considered unpleasant?

  "It's difficult to explain, Freddie, but yes, some people would consider worms to be very unpleasant."

  I will add this information to my database.

  "He's getting as bad as Valentina," Stephanie muttered.

  "I'm not aware of any Chechen terrorist group that could come up with ten million dollars," Elizabeth said.

  "Maybe Langley has something."

  "I'll talk with them later. At least we have a name to work with. It's not much, but it's more than we had before."

  "I'll tap into their computers and see what I can find," Stephanie said. "Even with DCI Hood's cooperation, I don't always trust the information we get from them."

  "Just don't get caught, Stephanie. It would compromise his relationship with us."

  "I think I'll take a peek at NSA as well. Ruslan may be in there somewhere. Freddie?"
/>   Yes, Stephanie?

  "We have work to do. I think you'll find it interesting. We need to break through a few firewalls."

  I always enjoy a challenge, Stephanie. The NSA has instituted a new security protocol which will be quite difficult to get through. I am sure that between us, we can do it.

  "You've got to love his optimism," Stephanie said.

  She left to work in her office.

  Elizabeth leaned back in her chair and thought about what Nick had found out. She'd been thinking Iran was behind stealing the bombs, but it didn't seem likely they'd back a Chechen terrorist group. The Chechens hated the Russians. Russia was helping Iran with its nuclear programs, so why would Tehran fund a terrorist group committed to causing trouble for an ally ?

  The Iranians were Shia. Chechens were Sunni. If there was a bright spot in the midst of the Muslim fundamentalists' desire to destroy America, it was that the two branches of Islam never agreed or cooperated. Their hatred for each other was even more intense than their anger toward the West.

  No, it didn't make sense that Iran was behind this, assuming it was a Chechen group that had stolen the bombs. At this point it was a big assumption, but it was the only one she had.

  North Korea? That was possible, since the death of the previous leader had made little difference in the hostile policies and actions of the People's Republic. However the government was preoccupied with internal power struggles that had not been resolved. It seemed doubtful they would arrange the long-distance theft of the bombs.

  What would a Chechen terrorist group do with three nuclear bombs?

  Where did the money come from? If not from a government, where?

  Elizabeth was determined to find out.

  Chapter 21

  Akhmad's truck with the bombs crossed the border between Romania and Hungary with no problems. His truck was well known, and he always made sure to have a gift for the guards. Usually a bottle of the fiery Romanian liquor called Țuică, sometimes cash, sometimes a part for a car that one of the guards had requested.

  The abandoned Soviet missile base where he was taking the bombs lay twenty miles to the southeast of Budapest, set in an isolated field miles from the nearest highway. The access road to the site had long since deteriorated into an unattractive scar across the countryside. At the end of what was left of the road, a rusting fence surrounded the site. Signs on the fence warned of radioactive contamination. More signs marked with a skull and cross bones served to discourage the occasional tourist or adventurous graffiti artist.