His line of sight focused on David, who was ignoring everyone, head down, typing furiously on his laptop.
Then I saw it.
Gerry Sinton wasn’t looking at David. He was looking behind David. He was staring at the reflection on the window from David’s computer screen.
I was farther away than Sinton and at a worse angle, and even I could see in the mirrored reflection what was happening on David’s computer.
The laptop showed two pages on a split screen. On one side was the Harland and Sinton log-in screen, with a large white box below their logo that asked for a password.
On the other screen was what looked like code. Bright green symbols and numbers that David was able to create at blistering speed before highlighting the sequence and then cutting and pasting the code into the password box on the other screen. I saw LOG-IN FAIL come up on the Harland and Sinton page, and David retyped another sequence.
An electric current shot up my spine.
The DVD ejected onto the rich burgundy carpet. I was already moving toward David. I slammed the laptop closed, almost trapping his fingers.
‘Enough PR work. Gerry’s right. If we don’t get you off, then all of this,’ I said, gesturing to Boo and Roger, ‘doesn’t matter a damn.’
The suddenness of my outburst and slam from the laptop closure spread a silence over the room as if all had stopped breathing to let the echoes find a home.
Sinton tapped on the slate tabletop, his pinkie ring making a repeated chipping sound. His gaze seemed far away, across the street to the Corbin Building, over the rooftops and beyond the trees of Central Park. His head swiveled around and snapped those cold eyes on me.
His voice had changed. The deep aggressive drawl had been replaced by a cold, detached tone.
‘Your wife went down to the courthouse to speak to you this afternoon. She didn’t come back to work afterward.’
He slipped a cell phone from his jacket, typed something, hit send, and returned his stare to me.
‘If she’s ill, she should’ve reported sick. A phone call at least. You mind telling me where she is?’
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
‘I saw her briefly this afternoon. She said she had someplace to be. We’re not together anymore, so I don’t know where she went. Where’s your partner, by the way? I would’ve thought Ben Harland would be here, too,’ I said.
‘Ben is on vacation. I’m more worried about your wife. Maybe she’s ill. Maybe you said something to upset her,’ he said.
‘I don’t think so. We had coffee together. It was fine. In fact, David, let’s you and I go get a coffee. You can drop me off afterward,’ I said. The escape signal.
Roger fired up the camera, and Boo reached into her bag. I didn’t know what she had in there, maybe a gun, maybe a knife. Boo could handle herself; she could be lethal with pretty much anything larger than a lipstick.
Holly stood, a little too quickly, but it didn’t matter. We’d already been made.
Footsteps in the hall. Fast. Heavy. Two men at least.
The conference room door opened and Gill stood in the doorway. He was still wearing the checkered shirt, but he’d gotten rid of the green jacket. He was on his cell phone. The blond Sergei stood beside him.
‘Tell Brond and Fiso to get up here. They’re not answering my calls,’ said Gill.
I presumed Gill was calling reception, unable to raise the Samoan and his friend in the lobby.
The associates looked confused. They didn’t have a clue what was going down.
‘That’s all of our video uploaded to the studio,’ said Roger.
Gill and Sergei exchanged a glance. They hesitated.
‘This is Mr Gill,’ said Sinton, sweat glowing from his forehead from the glare of the TV screen. ‘Mr Gill and his men look after firm security. I’m sure you won’t mind them accompanying you to your hotel, David. We can’t be too careful.’
I felt my fingers digging into my palms. My legs had spread into a stance, and I was ready to separate Mr Gill’s head from his shoulders if he made a move. If they thought David had hacked their system, none of us would leave the building alive. Gerry Sinton looked desperate – the rules had changed.
A low electric hum from the air-conditioning.
David held the laptop across his chest like a shield, but it only drew attention to his panic. It looked like David was using his chest as a pump to inflate the damn thing. He was on the brink of another panic attack.
I didn’t move. I was waiting for Gill to reach behind his back for a pistol.
‘Mr Gill, would you be so kind as to get that camera for me? I’d like to check it,’ said Sinton.
Nodding to the man beside him, Gill stood his ground. He had a good view of the entire room, and his back was to the wall, all of his potential targets and threats in front of him. He wouldn’t want to compromise that position. The blond guy from the lobby, Sergei, moved forward, walked behind Sinton and made his way toward Roger and the camera. Before he got to Roger, he had to get past Boo.
Sergei, at around six five and pushing the limits of his XXXL suit jacket at two hundred and fifty pounds, fixed his gaze on Roger. As he approached, he held out his right hand, palm open, to push aside Boo if she tried to intervene. She was half his size. He wasn’t even looking at her.
I almost felt sorry for the guy.
Casually, Boo raised her right knee high and then brought her pencil heel down like a hydraulic press on the top of Sergei’s left foot. At least two inches of stiletto heel disappeared into the soft flesh where his foot met his ankle. He didn’t scream. He didn’t have time. His mouth opened, his eyes rolled and by the time he’d hit the floor he’d already passed out.
Gill didn’t move forward.
His right arm flexed. His hand rose, and as it drew level with his waist, I saw his elbow extend behind him. He was going for a piece.
The conference doors burst open. Gill arrested his movement, and all heads swung to the back of the room to see the tall, dark figure cradling a Glock.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
‘The Lizard’s gotta make a small apology,’ said the Lizard.
‘Who is this?’ said Sinton, rising to his full height.
‘This is the Lizard. He’s a friend of mine. He handles my personal security,’ I said.
‘The two guys in the lobby didn’t want to let me up here. We talked. They didn’t listen. Cops are on the way. Your receptionist called them, then called the paramedics. The big Samoan guy don’t look too good. He might wake up tomorrow to find he’s a little shorter than he used to be.’
Sinton stumbled backward, knocked his chair over. Gill put a hand on his shoulder, never taking his eyes from the Lizard. I saw that the Lizard also locked his gaze on Gill. I’d seen this before. Somehow the two most lethal men in any room always seem to find each other; they know instinctively who poses the biggest threat, and neither of them will back down until one of them gets his ticket punched.
I didn’t need to check my watch to know that we’d been in the building for seventy minutes. I’d told the Lizard that if we hadn’t come out after an hour, he should come get us.
Nobody moved.
I heard the unmistakable sound of a police siren. It was soft and distant, but urgent.
‘We should go, Eddie. You got that thing,’ said the Lizard.
‘He’s right. I’ve got a thing. I think I can speak for David in saying you’re fired.’
When Sinton spoke, all of his practiced refinery washed away in his rage. ‘That’s just fine. We don’t represent snitches, anyway. No point. They usually get themselves killed.’
‘Why don’t we take the stairs; it was a long wait in the car,’ said the Lizard.
Quickly, we filed out, Boo and Roger in front, Holly and David, then me. The Lizard’s eyes lingered on Gill for a second longer, and then he blew him a kiss.
Gill winked.
We took the stairs two at a time down three flights.
�
��Here,’ said the Lizard.
We followed him through the swinging doors to a dark office reception lit with the interior light from the elevator – a knife jamming the elevator doors open.
As the elevator ran to the ground floor, no one could manage a single word – we were all trying to catch our breath, slow the adrenaline – except Boo and the Lizard, who weren’t breathing heavy; they were watching the digital display count down the floors. In the lobby, the female receptionist saw us, screamed when she clocked the Lizard, and hid behind her desk.
On the way out I saw the two security men lying in a heap by the door, their automatic weapons stripped and useless in front of them. One guard was facedown and unmoving. The Samoan sat on the floor, leaning his back against the wall. He gingerly touched his calf. His breath came in short, spasmodic gasps, increasing in intensity as his hands got closer to his ankle. His foot looked as if it was turned in the wrong direction. As the revolving doors swung to let us out into the street, the screams from the Samoan drowned out the still distant police sirens.
I got into the driver’s seat of Holly’s car and started the engine.
‘Don’t move; wait,’ said David.
I craned my neck to look at him and saw his laptop held up in front of his face.
The code screen had disappeared; only the firm’s page remained. Below the Harland and Sinton logo, it read—
YOU ARE NOW LOGGED IN
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
‘Wait, wait … If you take off, I’ll lose the signal.’
The NYPD response vehicles were maybe five blocks away, the two-tone sirens increasing their pitch and ferocity with every passing second.
I started the car, waited to let the revs die down, and then gently pressed the accelerator. If I revved the car too much, I would flood the engine – I just needed it warm, loose, ready to take off.
‘Oh Jesus, they’re coming,’ said Holly.
She buried her head in the seat and slid down until her eyes met the bottom of the passenger window. Gill and two other men were in the lobby, kneeling over the Samoan.
The Lizard hadn’t taken off either. He was waiting to follow me. He leaned out of the van window and hocked his thumb at me. Roger was behind the wheel of that van and he was also pumping the gas.
‘David,’ I said.
The hollow plastic tinkle of fingers on keys grew in intensity.
‘I’m downloading. Thirty percent.… forty-one percent … Hold on.’
‘David, we’ve got to get out of here.’
Nothing.
The sirens were close now.
Gill was in the revolving door, his right hand behind his back.
I nodded to the Lizard, floored the Honda, and pulled into the street. The dull, throaty noise from the van’s V8 sounded behind me. I signaled, turned the corner, and headed deeper into the city as fast as I could.
‘No, I’m almost done. Wait!’
‘You get it?’ I said, looking in the rearview mirror.
‘I got it,’ he said, removing the USB drive from his laptop.
We drove into Jersey, looped around the suburbs in crazy patterns. After thirty minutes I stopped the car, waited for the Lizard, Boo, and Roger.
‘You think the DA will let me walk in exchange for this?’ said David, holding up the flash drive.
‘I’ll push it as hard as I can. You risked your life tonight. I won’t forget that. The feds will lean on Zader to get this data. It’s all we’ve got. I just hope they want it bad enough.’
We listened to the wheeze from the engine while the idea floated around.
‘You think they can persuade him?’ said David.
‘I don’t know, but I sure hope so.’
I lied. I did know. Dell, no matter what kind of connections he had in New York, wouldn’t be able to sell the DA on a withdrawal for David. No way. They would want a full confession and jail time. Nothing else would satisfy Zader. Either I didn’t want to tell David, or I couldn’t. Whichever, I said nothing more. We’d made our play. The con had burned away the pretense with the firm. It was now open war. I’d already warned the Lizard to be on the lookout for the man with The Scream tattoo on his neck. When Roger, at the wheel of the CNN van, appeared in my rearview, I let him overtake and followed.
Weaving through the streets, keeping the van in my headlights, I thought of Christine. I was close to getting her out of this now. She and Amy just had to hang on for a little longer.
The sky had darkened and it was a full moon, bright and tinged with red. I imagined that when the cops arrived at the firm, Gerry would play it down, maybe tell them the Samoan fell down the stairs. I knew Gerry Sinton wouldn’t want the cops looking into him or his security team. He would make no complaint about the Lizard beating the hell out of his guys.
Sinton would deal with it his own way. Now that he knew we were on to the money-laundering scheme, he would go all out on having us killed. He had to be careful. Nothing to link it back to him or the firm. But the pressure was on.
‘Where’s the money gonna land?’ I asked.
‘Chase Manhattan at 4:05 p.m. tomorrow. I’ve got the account number.’
I wondered what Gerry would do when the money hit the account. I knew what I would do if I were him. If Gerry was smart, he’d leave the money where it was, take whatever cash he had stashed already, and hitch a private plane to a nonextradition country.
Dell needed the account details and all the evidence to sink the firm before the money became available. His biggest hope was to secure the illegal funds. The amount of money recovered was where the real glory lay for Dell.
‘How much money is there?’
‘Enough to give Donald Trump heart palpitations. Close to eight,’ said David.
‘Eight million?’ said Holly.
‘No, eight billion,’ said David.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Our destination following the visit to Harland and Sinton had already been agreed. The Lizard would collect his van from Roger’s house and leave Boo and Roger to put the CNN van in the garage. The Lizard was to collect his own van and meet Holly, David, and me at his place. The Lizard said his house would be safest. Turns out, it wasn’t so safe after all. But that had more to do with the wildlife in the house than the firm.
I pulled into a space outside a suburban residence in Queens, and the Lizard’s van parked behind me. Soon as we stopped I called the Lizard’s associate Frankie, whose people were watching the hotel Christine and Amy were holed up in. So far they were safe and there was no suspicious activity. And no men with neck tattoos.
The Lizard’s home looked more like a reptile house than a family home in the sleepy corner of Queens.
‘Don’t go into the yard. Don’t even open the door,’ said the Lizard, slowly, to everyone as they filed in through the front door. I remembered that out back the Lizard kept his most prized and highly illegal possessions – a pair of Komodo dragons that he called Bert and Ernie. Aside from personal protection, hits, and the occasional hot drop-off, the Lizard’s main role for the Italian Mafia was that of interrogator. If they needed somebody to talk, they brought him here. Usually a single look at Bert and Ernie was enough. Most of those guys didn’t catch on that the most lethal animal in that house was the Lizard himself.
Holly ate little and went to bed in the Lizard’s spare room. The Lizard stood in his kitchen, chopping a twenty-pound rack of pork belly and ribs into foot-long strips. When he was done, he went out back and locked the door from the outside.
Feeding time.
David left the plate in front of him untouched. Although he’d placed his laptop on the kitchen table, he had yet to open it. He sipped at yet another power drink and stared at a tank of tarantulas that the Lizard kept beside his toaster. I suddenly felt both sick and hungry. The Lizard had left a hero sandwich for me, which I unwrapped, cut in half, and then I placed each half on a separate plate.
‘You saved my life again tonight,’ David said.
I shook my head.
‘Boo and the Lizard saved all of us. I just hope it pays off.’
He drummed his fingers three times on the tabletop, adjusted the plate of sandwiches and pickles the Lizard had prepared, turning the plate through forty-five degrees. He took his time with the plate, making sure it was equidistant between his laptop and the edge of the table. When he was satisfied, he examined a pickle, before quickly replacing it and diving for the antibacterial wipes again.
‘I’m going to trust you,’ said David, handing me the USB drive. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Try for the deal. I know it’s a long shot. But there’s no reason your wife should be in danger. You can’t change what’s happened. I can. You can’t win this thing tomorrow. I know you’ll try; I understand that now. But quite frankly, there’s no reason your wife should suffer. Go on, take it.’
He wrote out a password code on the napkin. I folded the pen drive in the napkin, stood, and put my hand on David’s shoulder. He seemed to recoil a little and I gave him his space. I didn’t take it as a slight.
‘Thank you, but I’m not going to give this to them unless you and Christine walk,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘Eddie, I know you’ll do your best. I almost died twice today. I’m still here thanks to you. I won’t forget that.’
I dialed Dell’s number on the cell he’d given me.
‘I’ve got what you need.’
‘A guilty plea?’
‘No, but I have the next best thing. I have the algorithm trace to access the money trail and the account number for the final deposit. Money lands just after four p.m. tomorrow, and I know exactly where it’s headed. That’s what you wanted, right?’
Eddie Flynn 02-The Plea Page 22