by Jack Flynn
On this day, though, there was no one else there. The bathhouse was locked tight, and the wind off the water made it feel like it was ten below.
Cormack couldn’t feel the cold. He stood at the edge of the boardwalk, looking out at the water, seeing everything and nothing at the same time. The wind blew through him. Icicles formed on the tips of his beard and around his mouth as he exhaled. He thought about all that he had done in his lifetime – all the drugs he had helped smuggle, all the crime he’d tolerated, all the men he’d killed or had killed. There had always been a reason for it, he’d told himself; a reason beyond self-interest and individual profit. Crime existed. It was a fact. It was a reality that could never be overcome, particularly in places like this. Harbors, airports, border crossings … they were the funnels of international activity through which crime had to travel. The trick, he’d always told himself, was to make sure that crime was quarantined. His goal was to keep the crime from touching those who weren’t a part of it. If he could do that, he always felt that he served the public good. And if he made a buck or two in return, he figured that was more than fair.
But now the consequences had been visited upon him. Worse, those consequences had been visited upon Diamond.
‘What the hell is happening, Cormack?’
He’d known she was behind him. He’d heard the gate on the side of the bathhouse creak as Kit Steele came through from the street. Still, he was so deep in thought and self-torment that her shout startled him. She grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him toward her.
‘Seriously, what the fuck is going on?’
‘The war has started,’ Cormack responded quietly. ‘And it won’t end until I’m gone or Soh is.’
She took a step back and looked at him. His eyes seemed distant, and she wondered whether this was the same man she had known so intimately for months. ‘I know. I was over at the marshes,’ she said. ‘You gutted one of Soh’s men.’
He shook his head. ‘Not gutted,’ he said. ‘Captured.’
She considered this for a moment. ‘Did you get anything helpful from him?’
Cormack shook his head. ‘He’s well trained.’
‘And the guy over by UMass?’
‘One of mine,’ Cormack replied.
‘But they didn’t capture him,’ she noted. ‘They weren’t looking for information from him.’
Cormack shook his head again, this time slowly.
‘Why did they do it, then? What were they looking to get?’
‘My daughter,’ Cormack said quietly. ‘He was guarding her.’
Kit Steele gasped. ‘Oh my God!’ she exclaimed. ‘Diamond!’
He was surprised by her reaction. She had never met his daughter, and while he was sure he had mentioned her in passing, he didn’t think he had discussed her at length. That just wasn’t his way. And yet, somehow she seemed to intuit the bond that he had with her, and her feelings toward him seemed to impart an empathy for his love for his daughter.
‘They took her,’ Cormack said. ‘They’re holding her as leverage.’
Steele’s face was serious and troubled. ‘My people saw her,’ she said. ‘My people saw them with her.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Cormack demanded. ‘When? How? I don’t understand.’
She took a deep breath. ‘We’ve been watching Soh’s warehouse in Eastie. We know he’s involved with Vincente Carpio’s brother and that he’s planning something. My people saw them bring a woman in earlier today.’
‘How could they not do something?’ Cormack shouted. He grabbed her by the arm and shook her. She pulled her arm away and looked at him.
‘What were they supposed to do?’ Steele pointed out. ‘We’ve just got a couple of men. It happened quickly, and Soh’s men were heavily armed. They’ve had half a dozen men or more moving through there over the last day or so. My guys didn’t know who it was or why they had her. Even I didn’t know it was Diamond until you just told me. If they’d tried to do something at that point, Soh’s men would have killed her rather than giving her up.’
Cormack considered that for a moment. ‘OK,’ he said at last. ‘Maybe you’re right.’ He gave the matter more thought. ‘At least we know where she is,’ he said.
Steele shook her head. ‘We don’t,’ she said. ‘They didn’t take her into the warehouse. They loaded her right onto a boat and took her out.’
‘Out?’ he yelled. ‘Out where?’
‘We don’t know,’ Steele said. ‘It happened too fast, and we didn’t have anyone on the water.’
Cormack turned away from her. ‘Then she’s gone.’
She tugged at his arm. ‘Have they contacted you yet?’
‘They have.’
‘What do they want?’
‘Me,’ Cormack said. ‘They want me to step down from the union. They want me out of the way.’
Steele looked skeptical. ‘They know you’d never do that,’ she said. She waved her arm at the harbor. ‘This is all you know. They know it.’
Cormack nodded. ‘They’ll kill me. And they’ll kill her.’ His mind was working furiously. ‘You said they have half a dozen men there?’ he asked.
‘Around that,’ she replied. ‘It changes from moment to moment.’
He rubbed his beard and realized it was caked with ice, but he didn’t care. ‘We figure he’s got two dozen, maybe more, total. So if there are only a few at his warehouse …’
‘… He’s moved his base to somewhere else,’ Steele finished the sentence. ‘You just need to know where. But how?’
‘There was one other thing that he wanted,’ Cormack said.
‘What was it?’
‘He wants Suarez back.’
‘So?’
‘Suarez is a strategist – his right hand,’ Cormack said. ‘That’s what those files you gave me said. That’s why he wants him back. He wants Suarez’s help in figuring out how to take me out. That means that he’s going to bring Suarez to his new base once he gets him back. I can’t get any of my people close to his warehouse; they’d be spotted. But if your people are watching his place, and they let you know if and when they put Suarez on a boat, he can be tracked back to wherever Soh is now.’
Steele looked skeptical. ‘I can’t get the resources to follow them over the water without disclosing a lot more about what’s going on between me and you,’ she said. ‘Obviously, I can’t do that.’
‘That’s all right,’ Cormack said. ‘Your people would probably be spotted on the water anyway. I have ways of tracking them as long as I know that we’ve got the right boat.’
‘Are you sure Diamond is with Soh?’
Cormack shrugged. ‘She’s too valuable to him to let her out of his sight. I can’t imagine he’d entrust her to anyone else.’ He looked out at the water and thought again about all the things that he had done that had brought him to this moment. He thought about the way he had put his daughter and his grandchild at risk. It made him want to throw himself into the harbor – just keep swimming out into the icy water, and let the sea take him this time. But he couldn’t do that now, he knew. Now he was her only chance to live. And he could only save her with Kit Steele’s help. He looked at her. ‘Will you help me?’ he asked.
She thought about it, but only for a moment. ‘If I do it, that means I’m in, all the way. I need to know everything that’s happening.’
‘You sure?’ he asked. ‘You won’t have any plausible deniability if this goes sideways.’
She gave a bitter laugh. ‘I lost plausible deniability a long time ago,’ she said. ‘All I want now is to stop these people from doing whatever it is they’re planning. If I can do that, I’ll happily go to jail.’
Forty-Five
Javier Carpio sat in a deserted warehouse in Chelsea. It was made of corrugated steel, without even the pretense of insulation, and the wind seemed to blow through it as though there were no walls at all. There was a kerosene heater that was lit, but kept low, so the temperature hovered jus
t a few degrees above freezing – still some thirty degrees above the outdoor temperature.
There were five men with him. They were El Salvadoran, and while they’d all worked with MS-13, they were not associated with T’phong Soh. Nor did they truly owe their allegiance to the organization; the only loyalty they felt was to each other. They had fought together in the wars that plagued El Salvador long before MS-13 came into being. They had tattoos, but they were less prominent, and they contained imagery that only they truly understood. They stood behind him, spread out in a semi-circle, staring at the table set up in the center of the warehouse.
The nattily dressed man with the blond dye-job had been good to his word. Before them, two FIM-92 Stinger shoulder launchers were laid out on the table. He hadn’t shown up himself; he’d sent four of his muscle-bound, heavily armed clothes horses to make the delivery. It was clear that he wanted as little as possible to do with whatever Javier was planning. Javier couldn’t blame him; few would want to have any association with what was to come. The boats would be delivered later. He’d assured Javier of that.
Javier rose from the only chair in the warehouse and turned to face the men he’d bled with for more than three decades. ‘You know my brother,’ he said.
The men bowed their heads and murmured their unquestioning respect.
‘You are the only men I trust. Only you understand what he went through – what we went through when our mothers and sisters and wives were killed. T’phong Soh is a capable leader, but we cannot fully trust him with this. I do not know whether he would be willing to use such weapons in his own harbor, where he hopes to rule after we are finished. And so we must do what must be done.’
‘As always,’ one of Javier’s comrades said.
‘As always,’ Javier agreed.
‘Are you committed?’ Javier asked.
‘You are our brother,’ another man answered. ‘That means that your brother is our brother.’
‘And if more Americans die,’ another man said, ‘all the better.’
There was a murmur of agreement among the men.
It was enough, Javier knew. Men like this would never break their bond with him. Now, the real work would begin.
* * * * *
Diamond had been lying on the cold stone floor for hours. She couldn’t be sure for exactly how many hours. Perhaps four or five, she figured, but if told it had been ten, she would have no way to doubt it. The door opened, great heavy steel shrieking on hinges that sounded ancient, and sent shivers through her. She could hear footsteps coming closer. One set. She wasn’t sure whether that was good or bad. They stopped when they were beside her, and there was silence for a long moment.
She wanted to scream. She was so terrified, she wanted to cry out, beg for mercy, beg for forgiveness – beg to be killed. Fear scattered her thoughts, and she fought to control her breathing.
She felt the person squat down beside her and grab her hands behind her back, and then she felt the cold steel of a knife on her wrist. She gasped and thought that she was going to bleed out, there on a cold concrete floor, until there was nothing left in her to feed the baby in her womb.
The knife pulled and tore, and then she felt the tape give way, and her hands were free.
She lay there, afraid to move at all. Finally, the person spoke. ‘I have water.’
It was a high-pitched voice with a thick accent, and she wondered for a moment whether it was a man or a woman. ‘I have water, you can drink,’ the voice said again, and this time she believed it was a man, though she couldn’t be positive.
She rolled over slowly and leaned against the wall. The cloth bag still covered her head, and her mouth was still duct-taped shut. She hesitated, afraid to reach up and remove the sack or pull the tape off. After a moment, her tormentor lifted the bag halfway up her head, so that her eyes were still covered, but her mouth and nose were exposed. Then she felt fingertips on her cheek, prying and pulling at the corner of the tape. All at once, the tape was ripped from her face. It felt as though half of the skin went with the adhesive.
The man took her hand and pulled it away from her body until her fingers touched a plastic cup. He pressed it into her hand, and she took it, unsure whether she should drink. She was desperate to – it had been hours since she’d had anything to drink, and she was severely dehydrated. Still, she worried that whatever was in the cup might be poisoned. Or, worse still, it could be drugged, and her unconscious body could then be raped and beaten.
She pulled the cup toward her face and sniffed at it. The liquid had the faint odor of plastic and chemicals, but then that could have been the cup itself. She was desperate to drink, but still unsure.
‘Drink,’ the high-pitched voice said. ‘If I wanted to harm you, I would not need to do it through the water.’
She realized that he was right. There seemed to be little reason for her captors to play games with her water. She was completely in their control. She had no idea where she was, and no reason to think anyone else did, either. Only a fool in her situation would hope to be saved. She’d never thought of herself as a fool before, but perhaps there was still time to learn.
She brought the cup to her lips and took a sip. It was water. Cold and crisp. She couldn’t detect any chemicals, but it didn’t matter in any event; her thirst took over and she gulped the water down so fast, she probably would never have been able to taste the liquid. She felt some of the water trickle down her cheeks, but she couldn’t slow her consumption. When she was done, she wiped her mouth with her jacket sleeve, and held the cup out to her captor.
The cup was taken from her. ‘Is that better?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ she said. The sound of her voice was enough to make her want to be sick. How could she thank this person who had kidnapped her? How could she express gratitude to a man who would allow her to be bound and kicked and brought to this cold, dank, disgusting place?
‘You are welcome.’
‘Why am I here?’ She thought it was a gentle way to start a conversation that might lead to information. She winced as she said the words, expecting to be hit for speaking without permission. She marveled at how easy it was to become a good prisoner, and how quickly the transformation could happen. She resolved to reverse the metamorphosis.
The man didn’t hit her. ‘You are Cormack O’Connell’s daughter,’ he said. ‘He is the reason you are here.’
‘I don’t understand,’ she said.
‘You don’t need to,’ the man said. ‘He understands. That is all that matters.’
She digested that. ‘Are you going to kill me?’
‘No.’ The answer seemed definitive, and she wanted to take some comfort from that, but she knew to be skeptical. She figured that it wasn’t in her captors’ interests to have her lose hope. That would likely make her a more difficult prisoner. ‘At least, not if your father does what I have told him to.’
‘What did you tell him to do?’
The man didn’t answer. ‘Do you need to use a bathroom?’
Diamond hadn’t realized until just that moment that she needed a bathroom desperately. It seemed as though the water had flowed through her body from top to bottom like a raging river, and her bladder was now begging for relief. ‘Yes, please,’ she said. Again, the obsequiousness in her voice made her angry with herself.
All of a sudden, the bag was ripped fully off her head. Her hand flew to her eyes. Then, slowly, she lowered her hand slightly and peered through her fingers. The place was dimly lit. It was a small, cramped square room, with uneven cement on all sides. There was dirt on the floor and no windows. She couldn’t fathom where she could be, unless she was underground in some sort of a mausoleum.
She looked up and almost screamed. The man was looking down at her. The only light was from some sort of electric lantern in the corner, so he was lit from below, giving him a ghostly appearance. He was Southeast Asian, short and slight, with large white teeth and close cropped hair. Tattoos grew up from under h
is shirt, covering his neck like some sort of creeping infestation. She was partial to tattoos, and had many of her own, but somehow his were menacing in a way that scared her.
‘The bathroom is this way,’ he said. ‘It is not what you are used to, but it is all that we have.’
He smiled at her, and at that moment she knew that he had no intention of ever letting her live. He was too recognizable. If he thought that there was a chance that he was going to let her go, he would never have let her see his face. If she was going to live, she would have to escape, and she set her mind toward that goal. If not for herself, then at least for her baby.
* * * * *
His baby.
He was out there somewhere. Or she was. Buddy Cavanaugh didn’t know and didn’t care whether it was a boy or a girl. He cared that it was his. He cared that it was hers. He cared that it was theirs.
He touched the bruise Cormack’s fist had left on his face. He didn’t begrudge Cormack the punch. He supposed he’d react the same way if he had a daughter and someone got her pregnant. But Buddy hoped the punch was enough to purge Cormack of the worst of his ire. Now that it was out in the open – and now that Buddy knew that Diamond was pregnant – he was determined to be with her.
Buddy felt the burning need to talk to her, but Cormack still had his phone. He needed to get it back. The only way to make that happen, though, was to confront Cormack, and Cormack was in no mood to be confronted. The war had started, and it required all of Cormack’s attention. He wouldn’t like Buddy causing a distraction. Still, Buddy had no choice. Even if it meant that he would take another beating, he had to speak to Diamond before the true violence hit.
Cormack was in his office. His head was bowed over manifests and schedules, and he was studying them intently. Toby was hovering near him. ‘OK,’ Cormack was saying. ‘So these are the routes that all of our men are on today, throughout the morning?’ Cormack was confirming with Toby. Buddy marveled at how Cormack could still care about and focus on the mundane details of his responsibilities as the head of the union with violence at his doorstep.