Eddie Flynn 02-The Plea

by Steve Cavanagh

  ‘If you wanted information from David, you could’ve picked him up and scared him into giving you whatever you wanted. No, you needed a patsy. You needed David to plead guilty to the murder. That’s the only reason you got me involved. Shit sticks, right? You told me that yourself. Nobody would believe David didn’t steal the money after he pleaded guilty to killing his girlfriend. You weren’t just setting him up for murder. You were setting him up to take the fall for your robbery. This was always about the money. David’s setup was elaborate and brilliant – easily worth eight billion. That’s how much I know. That costs a lot more than fifty,’ I said.

  ‘You son of a bitch!’ screamed Sinton.

  Dell had turned his attention on Sinton. ‘You paid me to wash the money, but you didn’t need me anymore after Child came up with his algorithm. I don’t like being fired from the criminal organizations that pay me for my services; it sets a bad example for the rest of them. This is the greatest robbery of all time. Don’t you see that? I set you running like a hare, and you were very quick to kill your old partner. I got to say, I enjoyed that. It made things easier for us. How do you feel now? I’m taking it all, Gerry.’

  The gun shook in my hand, I’d never shot anyone before, but now seemed a good time to start.

  ‘Eddie, I’m going to pull the trigger. It’s all over for Gerry. Don’t shoot. Before I do that, I need to know, do we have a deal? One hundred million sound fair?’

  ‘If it’s dirty money, why the elaborate frame-up, Dell?’ I said. I needed to buy time. I wasn’t about to give up David or anyone else, and I knew Dell would kill me the second he had a chance. I knew I shouldn’t have pulled the gun. I should have clapped my hands. Come on, Kennedy, where are you?

  ‘Oh, I’m not worried about the cops. No, I’m worried about the organizations who own big chunks of that money. The cartel already sent their man up here to check this out. Only way I can survive this is if they go looking for someone else – someone like David Child.’

  The elevator chimed and the doors opened. I thanked God that Kennedy had made it. Slowly, Dell turned, shielding the gun as he did so. My gut tightened when I saw that it wasn’t Kennedy. Twenty feet away, standing in front of the elevator, were the last two people on earth that I’d expected to see.

  A figure in black. The man with the tattoo of the screaming soul – El Grito. In one hand he held a gun. His other hand was wrapped around the throat of Sophie Blanc. Her hair was cut short and dyed black. A livid bruise seemed to almost fold her face in two. But it was her. Sarah, Clara, Sophie, did she even know who she really was anymore? Right then it probably didn’t matter. She knew she was dead already.

  ‘We’ve been watching you,’ said El Grito, in a thick Latin-American accent. ‘Langhiemer is dead. No one is coming to get you out of this. I found this little whore in Langhiemer’s apartment. Drop the gun and take me to the money. And then she will die quickly. This is the best I can offer. You know this, puto.’

  The cartel’s hit man gave me a small window; a single moment of distraction was all I needed. I dropped the Ruger at my feet. I raised my arms above my head and clapped my hands. The window came in around me, covering me in a wave of shards. The thunder of breaking plate glass was answered by gunfire. El Grito threw his hostage on the floor and started shooting. The doors beside the elevator burst open – Kennedy came in low, Weinstein and Ferrar behind him.

  I ducked, leaned over the slate table, grabbed the edge with both hands, and heaved the whole thing over onto its side. The table weighed a ton, and as I pulled it, I tore the muscles in my back and let go of the damn thing just as it smacked into the side of my head. I went down behind it. The lights in the whole building went out. Standard FBI tactical assault.

  Deaf.

  I could feel the vibrations from the weapons. Blood and teeth-shattering cracks roared in my ears.

  Blind.

  The visceral dance from the coruscating muzzle flash. Fireworks from the parade bloomed phosphorous flowers in the black Manhattan sky. Inside, the deafening ballet was punctuated only by the teeming black of the room, which seemed to fight against the glimmer of muzzle flash. The dark wanted this place, and fought for it. I couldn’t tell if it was the darkness or the men that did the killing.

  I lay flat on the floor and watched sparks from the exploding TV ignite the carpet.

  And then silence.

  The quiet came before the smell – that sour odor from hot metal burning and tearing through flesh and bone and life. The shattered window let the Manhattan breeze into the place – almost in a futile attempt to wash the smell away on the air.

  My body would not move. It felt as if my limbs were betraying me, paralyzing me, so that I couldn’t get up and catch a bullet. I thought of Christine, and Amy, and somehow I moved.

  I still couldn’t see much. My eyes stung from the smoke coming off the burning carpet. On my hands and knees, I couldn’t find the Ruger. Ahead of me, a Glock. I took it and stood up.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE

  I thought everyone was dead.

  The offices of Harlan and Sinton, attorneys-at-law, looked like a war zone. I could taste blood in my mouth, probably from the table tumbling over on top of me. The metallic taste mixed with the smell of burnt acid rising from the spent cartridges rattling around on the floor. A fat moon illuminated ghostly trails of smoke that seemed to rise from the floor and evaporate just as I caught sight of them. My left ear felt as though it were filled with water, but I knew I’d merely been deafened from the gunfire. In my right hand I held a government-issued Glock 19. I moved around the table, and in the firelight from the smoldering carpet, I saw Sinton crawl across the floor, reaching for a gun. Without another thought, I pointed the Glock at him and fired. The bullet took him in the thigh, and he rolled over. His rasping, blood slicked breath gave out. There was already a mass of bullet wounds in his chest. I took comfort from that. I hadn’t killed him – he’d been dead already.

  The Glock was now empty. Sinton’s legs had fallen across the stomach of the corpse next to him and, in a curious moment of realization, I noticed that the bodies on the floor of the conference room all seemed to reach out to one another. I didn’t look at each one; I couldn’t bring my eyes to bear on their dead faces. I saw the treasury agents, Patton and the man in the sunglasses. Dell’s victims. I looked around for Kennedy, but I didn’t see him.

  My breath came in short bursts that had to fight their way through the clamp of adrenaline threatening to crush my chest. The chill wind from the broken window behind me began to dry the sweat on the back of my neck. The glass partition that moments before had separated the reception area from the conference room lay in thick, beady chunks on the floor.

  The digital clock on the wall hit 20:00 as I saw my killer.

  I couldn’t see a face or even a body; my killer took shelter in a dark corner of the conference room. Green, white, and gold flashes from the fireworks bursting over Times Square sent patterns of light into the room at odd angles that momentarily illuminated a small pistol held by a seemingly disembodied gloved hand. That hand held a Ruger LCP. Even though I couldn’t see my killer, the gun told me a lot. The Ruger held six nine-millimeter rounds. It was small enough to fit into the palm of your hand and weighed less than a good steak. Three possibilities leaped to mind.

  Three possible shooters.

  This was Dell’s piece. Maybe he’d found it.

  I hadn’t seen El Grito’s body. He could’ve picked up the gun, or brought it with him.

  A third possibility: Dell’s lover.

  No way to persuade any one of them to drop the gun.

  Considering the last two days I’d had in court, they all had a good reason to kill me. I had an idea about which one it might be, but right then it didn’t seem to matter somehow.

  The Ruger’s barrel angled toward my chest.

  I closed my eyes, feeling strangely calm. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go down. Somehow this last breath o
f air didn’t feel right. It felt as if I’d been cheated. Even so, I filled my lungs with the smoke and the metallic tang that dwelt long after a shooting.

  I didn’t hear the shot, just a dull thump, which couldn’t have been a gunshot. My eyes were tightly shut, so I didn’t see the muzzle flash – I only felt the bullet ripping into my flesh. That fatal shot had become inevitable from the very moment I’d made the deal to persuade David to plead guilty in exchange for Christine’s immunity.

  My pants felt wet and warm. I guessed it was my blood.

  Only then did I hear the shot; it sounded like a bullwhip cracking.

  Instantly, I knew that sound was different – it wasn’t the deafening thump of muzzle blast from the bullet and its gas propellant exiting the bore – this was different. This was the sound of the bullet breaking the sound barrier. I knew I wouldn’t hear the shot because the shooter was too far away. He was in the building across the street, behind a ‘for rent’ sign with an M2 sniper rifle, one of his favorite toys. He’d watched Christine from the Corbin Building, and if anyone had tried to take her out, he’d take their head off with one squeeze of the trigger.

  I opened my eyes. The Ruger was no longer there; neither was the gloved hand. A bloodied stump of bone and matter, the hand taken clean off by the Lizard’s shot. I heard the scream then. A woman’s voice, yet deep and agonized. She stepped forward, into the moonlight, and Sophie Blanc raised a Glock with her other hand.

  I’d thought everyone was dead.

  I was wrong.

  Four quick shots. Her body crumpled to the floor.

  I turned and saw Kennedy leaning out from behind a couch.

  The pain in my chest grew from something similar to a burning cut, into an ice pick plunged through my rib cage. I forced myself to look down. There was no bullet wound. Instead, the slide from the Ruger protruded from my chest. The handgun had been torn apart by the hollow-point boat tail fired from the Lizard’s sniper rifle. I guessed that the gun part was maybe six inches long, and most of it was buried in my chest.

  I don’t remember falling, but I remembered Kennedy shouting my name. And then Weinstein was in the room beside Kennedy. His head framed in the blare of the fireworks.

  ‘Eddie, stay with us. We got ’em. We got ’em all. We heard it all on your call,’ said Kennedy.

  I hadn’t disconnected Kennedy’s call. Instead I’d put the phone on the conference table and let Dell talk.

  ‘Your wife’s safe. So is David. It’s okay. Paramedics are on their way …’

  My head wouldn’t stay upright. It kept flopping to my left. Each time it did, I saw Dell’s body, the top of his head missing. The Lizard would have taken out Dell first. Beside him I saw El Grito’s corpse, his dead eyes staring at me.

  I heard Kennedy hollering for the paramedics.

  And I lost my battle for the light.

  EXTRACT FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES

  Wednesday, 18 March

  The 20th Precinct of the New York Police Department has released some of the names of the individuals who lost their lives in a bloody gun battle that took place yesterday evening in the heart of corporate Manhattan. Lester William Dell (54) and Sophie Blanc (31) were law enforcement officers working with the Treasury Department. Eli Patton (28), Joel Friend (29), and Sonny Ferrar were agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Gerald Sinton (49) was a named partner in Harland and Sinton, one of America’s most respected law firms. His partner, Benjamin Harland, lost his life in a boating accident just two days before. Police sources believe the two incidents are not linked. One dead man, believed to have links to the el Rosa Cartel, has not yet been named. And finally, criminal defense attorney Eddie Flynn (37), also lost his life. The district attorney’s office has yet to fix a date for a grand jury hearing into the murder of Clara Reece. No official statement has been issued on why this violent episode occurred.

  CHAPTER NINETY

  Six weeks after the shot

  ‘How’s it feel to be a dead man?’ said Kennedy.

  Even though he’d had time to rest and recover from the ordeal, the fed still looked like hammered shit.

  ‘I feel a damn sight better than you look. You ever sleep?’ I asked.

  ‘Not much. Not since Ferrar’s funeral. I saw you there, but it wouldn’t have gone down well with the rest of the Bureau if we’d spoken. You understand?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Look, I know your business took a dive after the Times told everyone you were dead, but we had no choice at the time. We had to let this blow over. The State Department, the Treasury Department, and the Justice Department are all up in arms about renegade CIA operatives setting up a joint task force to carry out the largest robbery ever committed on American soil. The CIA have said they’re carrying out their own investigation.’

  ‘I’m sure that’ll be extremely thorough. They have to know exactly what happened so they can make sure it’s buried for good.’

  Kennedy smiled and said, ‘You could be right. I’d say none of this will go public – too embarrassing. It’ll all blow over. In the meantime, I figured it would be good to take the heat off you and your family for a while, if everyone thinks you’re six feet under. The cartel won’t go looking for a dead man.’

  ‘You find the money yet?’

  He shook his head. ‘The virus David unwittingly uploaded wiped the whole system. We believe the virus and the money switching into David’s client account and then into the wind was Bernard Langhiemer’s work …’

  His face darkened at the mention of Langhiemer.

  ‘You find him yet?’ I asked.

  ‘Most of him,’ said Kennedy. ‘It looks like Dell’s partner, Sophie, was hiding out in Langhiemer’s apartment. El Grito found them, got Langhiemer and Sophie talking. It wasn’t pretty.’

  ‘So you think the cartel knows it was Dell who robbed them?’

  ‘We think so, but we’re making sure of it. We don’t want a bloodbath while they go looking for the money. At the same time as we’re covering this up in the press, we’re leaking to our sources in the cartel that Dell went renegade and that we recovered the money. That way no one will come looking for it from David or Christine. The cartel are sore about their man getting plugged, but it turns out El Grito had already fed back to his boss that the firm was tearing itself apart, what with Sinton killing Ben Harland and his daughter.’

  ‘His daughter?’

  ‘We got a positive ID last week on Samantha Harland being the body in David’s apartment. DNA profiling from her old man’s body. We also got a toxicology report. Turns out she’d been given a powerful sedative. We figure Sophie brought her into David’s apartment the day before the murder, drugged her, and stashed her in the soundproof panic room. The next day, after David leaves the apartment, she shoots Samantha in the back, then drags her into the kitchen and unloads into the back of her head. Samantha was twenty-six years old. Assholes like her father never think that what they get into might end up hurting their kids.’

  I gazed out at the street.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean …’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said.

  ‘I think it’s best if you lie low for a while, and when you want to practice law again, we’ll get the Times to print a retraction. If the cartel found out you’d made it out of there alive, they’d kill you on principle. But they’ve got short memories when it comes to straitlaced lawyers. Sometimes killing an ordinary member of Joe Public is much more difficult than taking out a player.’

  ‘I understand,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t suppose your memory has improved?’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The sniper hole cut in the glass on the thirty-eighth floor of the Corbin Building, the fact that Dell and Sophie Blanc all had bullet wounds consistent with a round from a high-caliber rifle? Any of this ringing any bells yet?’

  ‘I already told you, I don’t know anything about that.’

  I finished off my stack of
blueberry pancakes, drained the last of my coffee, and left forty bucks on the table for the check and the tip.

  ‘David pay you for the prelim?’ said Kennedy.

  ‘Way too much,’ I said. My financial worries were over, at least for now.

  A horn sounded outside Ted’s Diner, and I shook hands with Kennedy.

  ‘That’s my ride,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, I almost forgot,’ said Kennedy, handing me a large manila envelope. I checked its contents, shook hands with Kennedy again, and placed the envelope in my bag, beside two others of similar size.

  It was late April, and the blossoms were tumbling through the puddles on the sidewalk. I opened the rear passenger door of the Range Rover and climbed in.

  ‘This is a mighty step up from that Honda,’ I said, gritting my teeth at the stretch to get into the high vehicle. The wound in my chest still hurt like hell when I least expected it. It would heal, but I’d been told to expect an ugly scar.

  Holly pulled into traffic and looked at me in the rearview mirror. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘You could say our relationship has moved on. David wanted to get me a Ferrari, but I told him it was too ostentatious. This is nice.’ David leaned over from the front passenger seat and whispered something to her. She patted his knee and they laughed softly together. When David got released the day after Saint Patrick’s, Holly took him in. Through all the shit they went through over those two days, they’d somehow found each other. I was glad.