Текст книги "Greed"
Автор книги: Dan O'Shea
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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 24 страниц)
CHAPTER 62
The next morning, Lynch and Bernstein were out in Aurora.
“Nice place,” Lynch said. He and Bernstein were shaking hands with Perez in the lobby of the new Aurora PD headquarters. Bright, airy, lots of windows, more like some corporate HQ than a cop shop.
“Yeah,” said Perez. “Just moved in a couple months back. You don’t get the nice digs in the city?”
“Asbestos, lead paint, Seventies linoleum,” said Bernstein. “All the modern conveniences.”
Perez wound them through the building back to Jenks’ station. The IT guy. Black slacks today, expensive-looking white shirt, some kind of linen thing but without the wrinkles. Jenks walked them through what he had.
“First, you gotta understand we’re going to be pulling this apart for months,” said Jenks. “He didn’t keep much on his local drives – looks like just whatever he had cooking at the time – but he was a bitch for backups. Had a floor safe, pretty high-end piece we had to cut. Backups going back three years. Just scratched the surface on those.” Jenks pulled out a file from a drawer, set it on the desk. “Start of an inventory in there. He had the backups sorted by the name of the subject he was tracking.”
“OK,” said Lynch. “What about these shots of Hardin?”
“He had three Hardin files,” said Jenks, “and pretty much the same stuff in all of them. So he had three customers interested in the guy, and he was just reselling the intel.”
“Can you tell who the customers were?” Lynch asked.
“I can tell where he sent the stuff,” said Jenks. He clicked at his terminal for a minute. “OK, here’s customer number one. Gmail account in the name of John Smith, so that’s bullshit, right? But I looked at the IP addresses where this account pulled down the data Lee sent. You get a few outliers, but mostly you get the Starbucks downtown at Wells and Madison and you get another Starbucks up in Highland Park. So whoever it is, they’re making an effort to say off the grid, keeping it public so you can’t tie it to them.”
“Not trying hard enough,” said Bernstein. “Gerry Ringwald’s office is across the street from one of these Starbucks, and he lives in Highland Park.”
“Who’s Ringwald?” asked Jenks.
“Corsco’s lawyer,” said Lynch. “Any way we can tie it to him more directly?”
Jenks shrugged. “He’s working remote – could be a laptop, could be a cell phone, could be an iPad or something. If he still has the device he did the download with, then I might be able to tie the data to the box. Might even find the files on there.”
“OK,” said Lynch. “Who else you got?”
“Customer number two, the first few hits were in Juárez, so you have to figure that’s Hernandez. Then those start bouncing around. Picked up mail here in Aurora a couple of times, a couple spots in Chicago, all around the area. They’re moving around, sticking to public access Wi-Fi, so I can’t track this back to any base of operations.”
“Same deal?” asked Lynch. “We catch them with the right laptop, we can tie them in?”
“Yeah,” said Jenks. “Now, customer number three. This guy’s picking up his mail all over the 19th arrondissement.”
“The what?” asked Lynch.
“Paris,” said Bernstein. “The Arab quarter, actually. Where they had the riots back in 2005.”
“So that’s al Din,” Lynch said.
“Or his handler,” said Bernstein.
“Or his handler’s cutout,” said Jenks.
“Any of these guys do business with Lee before?” asked Bernstein.
Jenks nodded. “He’s sent stuff to the IP address in Juarez before, the Highland Park address, the Paris, so my guess is yeah.” Jenks spun his desk toward his chair, started clicking away on his keyboard. “Something else I wanted to show you,” he said. A slide show of pictures started on the monitor. Stein. Leaving his house, leaving his office, parking at the Stadium. “Part of a file that went to your Paris guy two weeks ago.”
Little snort from Lynch. He opened the file on Jenks’ desk, ran his finger down the list of names that identified the files Jenks had inventoried. Wide out for the Bears that just got his ass handed to him in a divorce, real estate developer everybody thought had the Block 35 deal tied up before he got low-balled by an out-of-town player, and Mike Lewis.
“Can you pull up what you got on Lewis?” Lynch asked.
“Sure,” said Jenks. “Sounds familiar.”
“County board race last year,” said Lynch. “Remember, that Kroger guy, inherited the seat when his old man keeled over after the primary? Got a little carried away on the patronage, even by Cook County standards? Lewis was the good government candidate that looked like he was going to win the primary, right up until he dropped out a week before the election.”
“Now I remember,” said Jenks, scrolling down his screen, clicking on this and that. “Real mysterious. Family issues or something.”
“That’s the guy,” said Lynch.
“OK, here we go,” said Jenks. Lee ran the file. Lewis leaving his townhouse in Printer’s Row, hailing a cab. Couple shots of the cab, tracking it through town, Lewis getting out of the cab at Belmont and Broadway, Lewis walking north and west. Lewis ducking into the Steam Room. Maybe an hour later, Lewis coming back out, another guy with him, the two of them walking a bit west before picking up another cab, the cab dropping them off at the Marriott on Michigan.
“What’s that about?” asked Jenks.
“Steam Room’s a gay bath house,” said Lynch. “Lewis is Mr Family Man, some kind of deacon at one of the black churches. Looks like he was playing on the down low. Hurley, Kroger, or probably one of their guys, they put the eyes on him, knocked him out of the race.”
Silence for a second, that sinking in.
“How many files does he have?” asked Bernstein.
“Haven’t cataloged everything yet,” said Jenks. “So far, better than three hundred.”
Lynch’s cell rang. Starshak.
“Looks like it’s your day for the burbs,” Starshak said. “When you’re done in Aurora, head for Highland Park.”
“Highland Park?” Lynch asked.
“Somebody offed Ringwald. And his family.”
CHAPTER 63
“Scenery was nicer in Wisconsin,” said Wilson. She was in Elgin with Hardin, in her underwear, pulling back the edge of the curtain in the window of their cheap hotel and looking out across the parking lot at the Jiffy Lube across the street.
“Where I’ve been the last couple decades, this place gets four stars,” said Hardin.
“So we just sit tight and wait on Fouche?”
“I was never big on sitting tight. I just don’t know what else to do.”
Wilson pulled on a pair of slacks she’d bought at a Wal-Mart in Kenosha on the way back down from Door County. She hadn’t had time to pack when they left Downer’s Grove.
“This has to be over soon, one way or the other,” she said, looking over her shoulder at the mirror. “These things make my ass look like it’s wrapped in plastic.”
“Think of it as handicapping,” said Hardin. “Gives the other girls a chance.”
“Fuck the other girls.”
Hardin shrugged. “If you insist.”
Wilson smiled at him, laughed, strange look on her face.
“What?” Hardin asked.
She shrugged. “This, you and me. Seems like anybody in the world who’d got a gun is lining up to take a shot at us and I can’t stop smiling.”
Hardin smiled back. “I know.”
“I was going to say how much I missed being with you, but we never even had that, not the first time.”
“I know.”
“Now, odds are, in a couple of days, we’re dead. I know that. And you know what? If you told me right now I could turn back the clock a week, I’d pass.”
“Me too.” Hardin’s smile faded and he held her eyes.
“Odds aren’t good, are they?” Wilson said.
“No.”
“I wait the better part of my life for you to come back, and I get a week if I’m lucky.”
“We,” Hardin said. “We get a week.” Hardin paused a moment. “Want to know the selfish thing? I hope they get me first. I’ve been in my share of shit, seen people shot, seen them bleed out. That’s OK. I can do that. But I don’t think I can watch you die.”
Her face serious now, too. “So how about we don’t?”
Hardin swallowed, nodded. They both finished dressing as he thought about their options, or lack of them.
CHAPTER 64
Lynch and Bernstein stood in Ringwald’s kitchen. The wooden chairs were arranged in a semi-circle, Ringwald on the end to Lynch’s left, Ringwald’s son on the end to the right. The boy, probably four years old, was next to the mother. The girl was between the mother and Ringwald. Lynch was guessing she was seven. Had been seven.
“.22s again?” Lynch asked.
“Yeah,” said McCord. Some Highland Park cops were milling around, but they didn’t get crimes like this on the North Shore. With the .22s and with Ringwald in the mix, it tied into Chicago, so they’d made the call. They were happy for the help.
The blood on the floor was tacky, drying, and the corpses didn’t look fresh.
“How long?” Lynch asked.
“Last night, late,” said McCord. “I’ll know better when I get them in the shop.”
“Everybody’s gagged except Ringwald,” Lynch said.
“Yeah,” said McCord.
“So you figure al Din was talking to him.”
“Yeah,” said McCord.
They both stood for a moment, saying nothing, looking at the bodies. The boy was wearing an Iron Man T-shirt. The girl was wearing a Miley Cyrus T-shirt and a pair of gym shorts. Lynch tried to picture the scene for a moment – everybody getting herded into the room, getting taped to the chairs, getting…
“This guy is starting to piss me off,” said Lynch.
“Yeah,” said McCord.
“I assume we’re going to talk to Corsco?” Bernstein asked.
Lynch just nodded.
“His right to counsel might be a problem, he decides to play it that way.”
“Fuck his rights,” Lynch said.
CHAPTER 65
Al Din’s phone pinged. He opened the text from Tokyo. A photo of a large, older man entering the Hilton hotel on Michigan Avenue.
The Americans had sent Munroe.
If Munroe was in town, then al Din had to assume he was getting close. Time to switch IDs. He checked out of his hotel, drove to O’Hare, returned his rental car, took a shuttle to the terminal, took another to a different rental car vendor, rented a new car under a new name and then headed west, away from the city. Munroe would check the city first. Then he would look near the Interstate highways.
North Avenue was a busy arterial street between Interstate 90 to the north and Interstate 88 to the south. Lots of traffic, lots of stoplights, not an easy place to get away from quickly. That made it a bad choice, which, with Munroe looking for him, made it a good choice.
Al Din found what he wanted – an inexpensive motel with an odd name, not one of the national chains. He checked in. It was late, he was tired, but he was also hungry. He walked across the parking lot to an anonymous tavern.
As soon as he walked in the door, he could feel the emotional buzz of a group sharing some significant experience. Then there was a loud roar from the back of the room. Al Din turned. A basketball game, probably part of this college tournament he’d been hearing talked about all week, this March madness. The team from the University of Illinois had progressed to one of the final rounds and the game was on.
Al Din flashed back to his last trip to the US. He had walked into another bar at almost exactly this time of night, that time in Cleveland, Ohio. The dozen or so people in the bar were not scattered at their separate tables, but were all standing in front of the large television at the back of the room. The American president was on, announcing that Osama bin Laden was dead. The Americans had tracked him to a compound in Pakistan and killed him.
As al Din listened to the tone of the coverage and felt the cathartic reaction of the people in the bar, he realized he had completely misread something in the American character. He’d seen the previous American president standing in the rubble in New York swearing those responsible would be brought to justice. He had heard the same hollow boasts from others over the years, the new president, senators, and congressmen. But he had assumed that it was merely rhetoric. That what really mattered was the pretense the attacks provided, the opportunity it had given the Americans to pursue their aims in Iraq and in Afghanistan. In fact, al Din had long assumed that the Americans had no real interest in catching Bin Laden. They had severed him from his network, so he personally was not a threat. And he served a useful purpose as the monster that inflamed their electorate, a name those in power could always use to manipulate opinion. Al Din prided himself on mastering idiom and recalled the word he was looking for. Boogeyman. Osama bin Laden had been America’s Boogeyman.
But Al Din had been wrong. They had never stopped looking. His opinion of the United States hadn’t been shaped by the sort of people in this bar; it had been shaped by men like Munroe. But for the average American, for the electorate whose favor those seeking power must court, Bin Laden made things simple. One man who, with his robes and turban and beard and hooked nose, could be made the face of Islam, could be the enemy. With him as a fetish, a totem, the American people didn’t even have to try to digest the real picture – the rage of the unemployed young masses in most of the Muslim world. The inbred sense of some historical injustice as they considered the previous grandeur of the Caliphate ground beneath the Crusaders’ heels. The Jewish state forced into their midst by the West, even after the West had spent centuries persecuting the Jews. The differences between Sunni and Shi’a, the distinction between secular and religious motivations. Bin Laden was the distillation for all of it, a way to make the complex simple. He reduced an equation involving centuries of history, dozens of cultures, differing religions and competing worldviews into one of their cowboy movies. Good guys and bad guys in the street with guns.
And so America, the most powerful nation on Earth, had spared no effort, no expense, no technical wizardry or human sacrifice in their obsession to find Bin Laden. Even with his fortune, his international network, the open support of the Taliban, the tacit support of Pakistan, the ambivalent support of the Saudis, even with all of those advantages, he could not hide forever.
Al Din stood now in a different bar feeling a crowd of Americans reacting to a basketball victory in much the same way the crowd in Cleveland had reacted to news of Bin Laden’s death and realized that, if Bin Laden could not hid forever, then neither could he.
With Bin Laden dead, if al Din completed the New Mexico project, the Americans would need a new face of evil. As Tehran’s puppet, its cut-out, as the face at the end of the money trail, al Din would be it. He would be the new Boogeyman, In fact, MOIS would make sure of it, was already making sure of it. That explained the delay in paying him. Tehran would tie the money from the diamonds directly to al Din and al Din directly to Al Qaeda.
Al Din had never considered America to be his enemy, just his target. And he had never considered MOIS or Al Qaeda or Hezbollah to be his friends, just his clients. He had no mission but his own wealth and his own survival. Now it seemed that the best way to preserve both would be to switch sides.
He would make a deal with Munroe. And he would retire in the West, a rich man instead of a hunted one, secure from any threat his betrayal might bring from his current masters, because the Americans, the most powerful nation on Earth, would now be working to ensure his safety instead of his death.
That was his plan, anyway. But it would be a ticklish business. Munroe would value his cooperation. It was clear from the political rhetoric al Din was hearing in the American media that Munroe was using his knowledge of the diamonds and some other angle that al Din did not understand to create a new axis of evil, this one running from the Mexican drug cartels to Bin Laden’s corpse. Al Din could give Munroe a way to add Tehran to that axis. The only question was whether Munroe would prefer that al Din cooperate as an ally or as a corpse.
Corpses were much easier to manage.
In the meantime, he would continue to look for Hardin. He would recover the diamonds, not for Tehran, but for himself.
CHAPTER 66
Corsco slammed the door, his face red.
His home. That cop, that fuck Lynch, had the balls to turn up at his home. Show up with his little Jew in tow; brace him in front of his family. Of course Lynch couldn’t have exactly called Ringwald and set something up, Corsco knew that now.
Corsco didn’t give them shit, of course. Couldn’t, even if he wanted to. Corsco had no clue what was going on. Ringwald? Why? Over what? Sounded like a pro – .22s, close range. Lynch told him that much, probably trying to shake him up, which he had.
One of the other families? But why Ringwald? Why give Corsco that kind of heads up if they were coming after him? Hernandez maybe, over this Hardin shit? But again, why the lawyer? And .22s weren’t Hernandez’s style. He’d have gone in with a chainsaw. This Hardin puke? Did he hear something; figure he could get information out of Ringwald?
Too many fucking questions.
But whatever the hell was going on, he had the cops up his ass like a big-fisted proctologist, which means they’d be digging hard at anything they could get their mitts on. And one of those things was Fenn. Fucking actor, should’ve known he’d have some kind of cocaine immunity.
Type of thing he’d usually have Ringwald set up, but until he got a new shyster on the payroll, he’d have to use what he had. Took out his cell, called Franco. Franco was solid.
“I need you on a plane to Kansas City,” Corsco said. “I want the Eagle on Fenn.”
Franco didn’t say anything for a second, which Corsco understood. The Eagle made people nervous.
“What kind of number can I give?” Franco finally asked. This was no time to be cheap. First of all, there weren’t a lot of hits, not in real life. Hit men were a movie thing. In the mob, mostly they were favors. Sure, you had some guys with the stomach for it, so maybe you used them more than others; maybe they got a little rep. But you didn’t have these shoot-the-balls-off-a-gnat, karate-master ninjas who charged six figures a pop that you saw in the movies.
You just had the Eagle. And the Eagle wasn’t cheap.
“Whatever it takes,” said Corsco. “But this has to be fast, a day, maybe two. Or no deal.”
CHAPTER 67
Munroe slid his keycard into the door to his suite at the Hilton. Had to make some calls, check some e-mails.
As he stepped past the short wall that blocked off the bathroom and the closet from the rest of the suite, he saw Husam al Din sitting in the easy chair by the window, a silenced automatic steady in his lap. When a second passed and al Din hadn’t shot him yet, Munroe exhaled. Must be here to talk. Or at least to talk first.
“If you would please remove your weapon, release the clip and then pull back the slide,” said al Din.
Munroe took out his 9mm, dropped the clip and then jacked the round out of the chamber.
“Drop it in the trash can please,” al Din said. Munroe did.
“And the backup,” al Din said. “Inside of your left ankle, if my memory serves.”
Munroe bent over, pulled out the .32, went through the same routine.
Al Din nodded toward the desk. Munroe saw the extra Beretta that he kept in the nightstand broken down on the blotter.
“My intentions are not hostile,” said al Din, “but I thought our conversation might go more smoothly if you weren’t focused on getting to one of your backup weapons during our conversation.”
“Swell,” said Munroe. “You mind if I take a piss first?”
“Be my guest. But I have also removed the weapon you had taped under the sink.”
Munroe shrugged. “It was worth a shot. Still gotta piss though. At my age, my bladder doesn’t handle having guns pointed at me as well as it used to.”
Al Din gestured toward the bathroom with the pistol. Munroe went to the john, came back, spun the desk chair around to face al Din and took a seat.
“Enjoying Chicago?” Munroe asked. “Tried the pizza? Lots of good Italian joints out near the United Center.”
Al Din smiled. “I wanted to talk about the boogeyman. Isn’t that what Bin Laden used to be? The Boogeyman?”
“Boogeyman?”
“Did I use the term incorrectly?”
Munroe shook his head. “Just caught me by surprise. No, you used it perfectly. Guy’s been dead a while now, though. Why the sudden interest?”
“I’m afraid someone else might be planning on making me your new one,” said al Din.
Munroe snorted. “You’re good, buddy, but you’re getting kind of a big head, aren’t you? You’re not exactly a household name. A boogeyman has to be someone we can shake at the voters when we need to give them a good scare, has to be a known entity. You’re under the radar. And I thought you liked it that way.”
“That may be about to change.”
Munroe paused, considered that information. “So you guys were moving the diamonds for a reason. And you’re still in town, so that reason is local.”
Al Din nodded.
“Anything you care to talk about?”
Al Din shrugged. “I thought first we could discuss the elasticity of loyalties.”
“One of my favorite subjects,” said Munroe. “Getting a little disenchanted with Sandland? Looking for an upgrade?”
“To paraphrase your American saying about baseball, terrorism has been very, very good to me. But I’m not sure that retirement in Waziristan is to my tastes. One of the dangers of operating in the West, I suppose, the seduction of comforts. The women, the food, the liquor.”
“How you gonna keep ’em down on the farm once they’ve seen Par-ee? It’s our secret weapon. We pretty much brought down the Soviet Union with blue jeans. So, you’re looking to deal?”
“Let’s call this an exploratory meeting. I’m wondering if a deal is possible. I’ve already killed several Americans on your soil this week, and we both know they aren’t my first.”
“Blood under the bridge, old sport. You got a few things in your favor. First, there are maybe ten other people in the country who’ve seen your whole resume, and they’re all pretty pragmatic guys. The shit this week? Maybe your name’s been bandied about some, but it’s nothing we could take to court.”
“I’m not worried about court,” al Din said. “I’m worried about SEAL Team Six.”
“That’s my dog. It doesn’t bite unless I tell it to.”
“And Mossad? Do you hold their leash, too?”
Munroe smiled. “The Israelis can be a little intransigent, can’t they? But what they don’t know won’t hurt them.”
“There’s not much they don’t know.”
“Yeah, but they’re willing to pretend they don’t know a lot of shit, as long as we keep sending them a few billion dollars of aid every year. I wouldn’t plan on vacationing in Jerusalem, but as long as you don’t go rubbing their nose in anything, we can reach an accommodation.”
“I’ve already been to Jerusalem,” said al Din.
“I know. Off the ol’ bucket list, eh? So, you ready to talk turkey?”
“Talk turkey? This phrase I do not know.”
“Cut to the chase, get down to business. If you’re looking to switch teams, then I’m gonna need some details.”
“Let’s say I’m ready to explore free agency. As I understand your American sports, switching teams comes down to money.”
“Yeah,” said Munroe. “And we’re the Yankees. We got more money than the rest of the league put together. Plus, if you’ve been studying free agency, you’ve heard of collusion. You start trying to get a bidding war going, we’re going to whisper in a few ears and dry up your market. You deal with us or you don’t deal with anybody. So unless someone from the farm team over in Tehran has put a big number on the table, you’re not in a great negotiating position.”
“The diamonds are worth $150 million. Hardin was looking to deal with Stein, so I suspect he’s now looking to deal with you. Ten percent on Hardin’s end, I imagine. Fifteen million dollars. I’ll take that.”
Munroe shrugged. “Hardin’s already offered us the diamonds. And he actually has them. We pay him, we get to turn those around anyway we want and we come out way ahead on the deal. You don’t have any diamonds.”
“Not yet.”
“Maybe not ever.”
“True. But I have something more valuable. I have what the diamonds were paying for. Your media tells me America has spent nearly $4 trillion to avenge the three thousand killed on 9/11. How much will it have to spend to avenge ten times that many? Or twenty? Or more? And how much cheaper would it be to spend a fraction of that amount now to prevent those deaths? And to be able to bring to justice those who planned them?”
Munroe just watched for a moment, tried to read al Din’s face, but he got nothing.
“We’d spend a pretty penny,” he said. “But we’d need some proof.”
Al Din smiled, nodded, sat quietly for a minute, then stood up. “I imagined so. Now that I know an accommodation is possible, I will provide some.”
Al Din pulled a cell phone from his pocket. “I will call you on this when I am ready. Now, if you will turn the chair to the desk please, I’m afraid I need to take a minor precaution before I leave.”
Munroe turned the chair around, heard al Din close in behind him, thought for a second about making some kind of move, then thought again. Even when he was a kid, he hadn’t been in al Din’s league, not at the rough stuff.
“This is going to hurt, isn’t it?” Munroe asked.
“Not now,” al Din said. “But later, yes. I will offer some information for you to consider before our next conversation. A name. You may consider that name to be my bona fides. Bona fides, am I using the term correctly?”
“Depends on the name.”
“Dr Mark Heinz.”
Oh shit, Munroe thought, just before al Din hit him behind the ear with the butt of his pistol and the lights went out.
