Текст книги "Greed"
Автор книги: Dan O'Shea
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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 24 страниц)
Al Din said nothing for a moment, digesting this information. “Such grand designs,” he said finally, “and you cannot pay this poor workman his wages?”
Javadi waved his hand as if al Din’s comments were without consequence. “This business with the diamonds, it should already have been completed. Your payment, being part of the New Mexico project, was to come from those funds. Alas, it seems that Stein and his Mossad compatriots are not the only ones with a taste for Al Qaeda’s diamonds. The fools in Sierra Leone allowed the entire shipment to be stolen. By this man.” Javadi pulled a picture and an envelope from his pocket and handed them to al Din.
Al Din looked at the picture of Hardin. “He was with Stein, the night I killed him.”
“Trying to sell the diamonds, no doubt,” said Javadi. “His name is Nicholas Hardin. His dossier is in the envelope. He needs a new buyer. Find this Hardin, retrieve the diamonds, and kill him.”
“Yet another mission, but you still have not paid me for the last two.”
“The diamonds are valued at more than 150 million US dollars. Tehran feels a finder’s fee of five percent would be appropriate.”
“Al Din feels a finder’s fee of ten percent would be more appropriate.”
“Which is exactly what I told our masters,” agreed Javadi.
“In addition, of course, to what I am already owed.”
“Of course.”
They turned back toward the campus, the wind now at their backs, walking in silence for a time.
It had never been al Din’s goal to serve Allah, or, for that matter, Tehran. It was his goal to serve al Din. This new assignment – Tehran expected him to retrieve a huge fortune and return it to them in exchange for a small one. Yet even that small fortune, added to the accounts al Din already had secreted around the world, would mean that he would no longer have to serve the ridiculous whims of his Islamic masters. Instead, he could serve his own appetites.
But he would be serving them in a dangerous world. On 9/11, the Americans were enraged by an attack that, in truth, destroyed more real estate than human life. A mere three thousand dead, and yet one could measure America’s rage in a decade of governments overthrown, countries occupied, hundreds of thousands killed. How would America’s rage be measured when the streets of Chicago were littered with ten times as many dead?
Tehran intended to pay al Din from the Al Qaeda accounts. That meant that the money trail from the New Mexico project would end with al Din, not with Tehran. Al Din’s methods for receiving payment were carefully structured to protect his anonymity, but only a fool considered any method perfect. If there was one thing the Americans understood better than anyone else in the world, it was money.
Al Din decided. He would proceed, but he would maintain control. He would deploy the devices, but only he could decide when or if to set them off. He would secure these diamonds, and then he would decide when and to whom he would sell them. Options and leverage. That is not what he would say to Javadi, of course.
“Agreed,” al Din said.
As they neared the campus, Javadi spoke.
“I understand that you killed the good Dr Heinz with a stone?”
“Yes.”
“How fitting. Like Goliath, seemingly invincible, yet felled with a simple stone. As soon will be these Americans, who imagine they can impose their will on Allah’s people. When all is in place our devices will kill them in their tens of thousands, and with weapons almost as simple as a stone.”
Al Din left Javari to wax poetic about his vengeful religious visions. Instead, he took one more look at the picture before pushing it back into the envelope.
Paradise awaited. Not in the next life, but in this. First, however, this Nick Hardin must die.
CHAPTER 14
Hardin had just walked into the garage, popped the trunk to the rental, and dropped his duffle inside when he heard a car stop behind him. He slammed the trunk shut and turned around. A skinny guy in a blue Adidas tracksuit got out of the back seat of a black Grand Marquis holding a 9mm Glock down along his right leg.
“Take your coat off a second, Hardin.”
They knew his name. Great. Hardin had no play. He slipped off the jacket.
“Turn around once for me.”
Hardin did a slow circle.
“You ain’t packing some little sissy gun somewhere, are you?”
“No,” said Hardin.
The guy moved away from the door and nodded his head at the back seat. “Get in and slide over. Somebody wants to have a chat.”
Hardin got in, scooting over behind the driver. The driver was a hugely fat man wearing some kind of velour pullover. The skinny guy got in on the passenger side and shut the door, staying away from Hardin, holding the gun on him across his lap.
“Let’s go, Beans,” he said.
The fat man drove the car out the Madison Street entrance, took a left down to Lake Shore Drive, and then headed south. As he cleared the garage, he pulled his cell phone, hit one button. “We’re clear, you can turn ’em back on,” he said, and put the phone away.
Nobody said anything. They drove past Grant Park to the museum campus, took a curve at Roosevelt then south again past Soldiers Field; McCormick Place sliding by between them and the lake. The driver stayed in the right lane, keeping the car right at fifty, cars flying past on the left. These guys didn’t look like Hezbollah. They looked more like something out of a Sopranos episode. And this chat the guy talked about, Hardin had a bad feeling he’d already had all the chat he was going to get.
“This about the diamonds?” said Hardin, trying to find an angle.
“Shut the fuck up,” said the fat man.
“Just drive the damn car, Beans,” said the skinny guy.
Hardin heard a squishy burble from the fat guy, and then the odor hit him.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Beans,” said the skinny guy.
They kept heading south, past the Museum of Science and Industry, Lake Shore Drive turning into South Shore drive, heading down toward the abandoned US Steel plant. The fat guy farted again. The skinny guy cracked his window.
“Mind if I open this side?” said Hardin.
“Shut up,” said the skinny guy.
“So you aren’t after the diamonds,” said Hardin.
The skinny guy didn’t say anything.
Finally the skinny guy said, “Tell me about these diamonds.”
“Better than $150 million in uncut stones. Gotta be about the diamonds,” said Hardin.
The fat guy turned his head. “Don’t listen to this guy’s bullshit, Snakes.”
“Shut up, Beans,” snapped the skinny guy. “There’s a reason I’m riding in the back and you’re driving. It’s cause your colon works a hell of a lot harder than your brains. Just drive the fucking car.”
The skinny guy twitched the gun at Hardin. “Some reason I should believe you ain’t full of shit?”
Hardin shrugged. “From the smell of things, there’s only one guy in this car who’s full of shit.”
Skinny guy snorted. The fat guy turned his head. “You ain’t gonna be so funny in a few minutes, asshole.”
Hardin said, “I’m going to get something out of my coat, so don’t get excited, OK?” Hardin had maybe five grand of his cash in an envelope in his inside jacket pocket.
Skinny guy lifted the gun up a little. “Slow and easy.”
Hardin nodded. He shifted his hips so he was facing the skinny guy, and then he slipped his hand in his coat, grabbing the envelope and the Air France ballpoint he’d pocketed on the flight over. He dropped the envelope on the seat between him and the skinny guy, top down, so the money spilled out.
The skinny guy’s eyes tracked down to the cash, the gun leaning a little away from Hardin.
Hardin did two things. He shot his left hand out and clamped it down on the barrel of the pistol, pushing it away. With his right hand, he backhanded the Air France pen into the skinny guy’s trachea. The pen went in deep.
Skinny pulled the trigger, putting a bullet through the back of the passenger seat and into the dashboard, blowing up the radio. Skinny tried to hold on to the gun, but his mind was on getting some oxygen, which wasn’t going so well, what with a pen through his windpipe and blood running down into his lungs.
Hardin twisted the gun out of Skinny’s hand and slammed it hard against his forehead. Skinny slumped against the passenger door, a little blood bubbling out around the pen in his throat.
The fat guy was squirming, trying to drive the car with one hand and pull a gun off his belt with the other, but his gut was in the way. Hardin put the Glock to the back of the fat man’s head.
“OK, Beans. Get the piece out real easy and hand it back here.”
The fat man worked the gun loose and handed it back to Hardin.
They were coming up on 86th Street, where it cut across the railroad tracks and onto the old US Steel property.
“Turn in there,” said Hardin. “Looks like we’re going to have that chat after all.”
“OK,” said Beans.
“And if you fart again, I’m gonna kill you.”
Hardin had the fat man park the car behind a pile of rubble most of the way down toward the lake. The whole US Steel plant was gone, ripped down, nothing but gravel, weeds and empty concrete slabs. Hard to believe. Hardin had an uncle who had worked at US Steel back in the Seventies. He remembered going down to the plant, the sprawling parking lot full of Oldsmobiles and Chevys. Dirty, hulking buildings puking gray-black smoke out over the lake. Clanging noises, thudding noises, the big-ass ore ships in the channels at the south end, and everywhere slope-shouldered men with meaty faces in dirty coveralls. Now it was just a flat expanse, grass poking up through the stone and rubble. It was like the civilization that needed the steel had been gone a thousand years.
Hardin nudged the Glock into the back of the fat man’s head. “Gimme the keys,” said Hardin.
The fat man tossed the keys onto the back seat. Hardin put them in his pocket.
“Give me the phone, too.”
The fat man unclipped the phone off his belt and handed it to Hardin as well.
“Get out of the car, go around the front and get your buddy off the back seat,” Hardin said.
The fat man climbed out, went around the hood to the passenger side. When he had most of the car between them, Hardin got out, too, keeping the Glock on the fat man as he opened the rear passenger door, grabbed the skinny guy by his track jacket and dumped him out on the gravel. There was a little gasp out of Skinny when he hit the ground.
“Jesus,” said the fat man. “He still alive?”
Hardin came around the back of the car, circling wide, keeping a good five yards between him and the fat man. Hardin looked down at Skinny. Looked dead to him. Probably just some left-over air forced out of his lungs when he hit the ground.
“If he’s alive, he’ll get over it,” Hardin said. “He’s got a phone on him somewhere. Get it.”
The fat man went through the skinny guy’s tracksuit, found the phone, and tossed it to Hardin. Hardin wiggled the gun at the fat man, and then pointed it at the pile of rubble.
“Let’s head over there.”
As soon as the fat man turned, Hardin took three quick steps and kicked him hard behind the left knee, buckling his leg, and then put the sole of his foot against the fat man’s ass, shoving him face down on the ground. Guy seemed docile enough, but at his size, if he got a hold of you, it was all over. Hardin wanted him on the ground. Big as he was, it would take the fat man a week or so to get to his feet – plenty of time to shoot him.
“What the fuck you do that for?” said the fat man, rolling over to sit on the ground.
“Shut up,” said Hardin.
Hardin stuck one of the pistols in his belt, stuffed the other one in his jacket pocket. He walked over to the rubble pile and picked up a fist-sized rock.
“So, who you working for?” asked Hardin.
“I can’t tell you that,” said the fat man.
Hardin took a short wind up and zipped the rock off the fat man’s right thigh.
“God!” the fat man shouted.
Hardin grabbed another rock. “So, who you working for?”
“They’ll fucking kill me,” the fat man whined.
Hardin threw the rock into the fat man’s gut. “Been in Africa a long time,” said Hardin. “Don’t play much ball over there, so it will take a while to get loose Seen this done, though. Get up in northern Nigeria where they’re big on Sharia law and they’re always stoning someone to death. Usually some skinny-assed chick they think’s been sleeping around. Even then, it takes a while. Don’t know what your boss has planned for you, but this,” Hardin grabbed another rock and hit the fat man in the chest, a little harder this time, “this is one nasty fucking way to go. Big guy like you, I’m gonna get through most of this pile.”
The fat man started crying.
Hardin didn’t want to do any real damage, at least not yet, but he had to make sure he had the guy’s attention. He found a smaller rock and bounced it off the side of the fat man’s head, opening up a decent gash. The blood started flowing down the fat man’s face and onto his shirt. The fat man put a hand to his head, and then looked at the blood on it.
“Corsco,” he blubbered. “Tony Corsco.”
“Who’s that?” asked Hardin.
Fat man looked up, stopped blubbering. “What do you mean who’s that?”
“I’m not from around here, asshole. Who the fuck is this Corsco?” Hardin bounced another rock of the fat man’s leg.
“Ouch! Fuck, knock that off! I’m fucking talking, OK? He’s the boss – Chicago, Milwaukee, St Louis, the whole Midwest.”
“Boss like mob boss?
“Yeah. What the fuck did you think?”
Not that, thought Hardin. “So what’s he want with me?”
“He wants you dead. That’s all I know. Gave me and Snake the picture, told us your car was in the garage there, told us to take you out.”
“What picture?”
The fat man pulled a sheet of paper out of his shirt pocket, unfolded it, held it up. Picture of Hardin at the rental counter at O’Hare. And they’d been waiting when he got to the garage – which meant they’d been looking for him since before the Oprah show aired.
“Where’d Corsco get the picture?”
“How the fuck should I know?”
Hardin zinged a rock into the fat man’s shoulder, just on principle. “When?”
“Fuck,” the fat man said. A huge bubble of snot hung down from his nose, the blood from his head now covering the left side of his face, soaking into his shirt. “Yesterday, right after lunch, OK?”
Hardin knew he should kill the guy. Hell, he’d killed plenty of guys. But something about plugging the fat man while he sat on his ass bawling in the middle of a ruin sat funny with him. Besides, other than Corsco’s name, Hardin still didn’t know shit. Leave the fat man around, and if he saw him again, maybe he’d know more. The fat man would be hard to miss.
“Give me your wallet,” Hardin said.
“Ah, man,” said the fat man. He shifted up on his side, fishing the wallet out of his back pocket, and tossed it to Hardin.
Hardin flipped it open. “Garbanzo? Really?”
The fat man shrugged. “Why you think they call me Beans?”
“I was thinking cause you fart all the time.”
“Hey,” the fat man said, all indignant suddenly. “I got a condition, OK?”
“Sure,” said Hardin, sticking the wallet in his hip pocket.
“Can I have the wallet back?” Garbanzo said. “I mean, you can keep the money and stuff. I got a picture of my mom in there. I don’t got a lot of pictures of her.”
Hardin flipped the wallet back open to a picture in one of those plastic sleeves. Fat woman with an Italian afro of gray hair, speed bags of chicken-skin fat hanging down off her arms. Hardin took the cash and cards out of the wallet and tossed it back to the fat man.
Hardin whipped one last rock at the fat man, right off his kneecap. “I see you again, you’re dead,” said Hardin. He took the keys from his pocket, got in the Grand Marquis and pulled away, the fat man in the rear view mirror still sitting on his ass in the gravel, not looking like he was in any hurry to get up.
OK, he thought. I needed a gun, now I’ve got two. Not a bad morning, aside from the whole mob-wanting-me-dead thing.
Beans Garbanzo hurt all over. He’d also shit himself. The gash on his head had stopped gushing and was just seeping now, but the side of his head was swollen up like he was one of them Special Olympics kids. His leg hurt bad, and his chest hurt when he breathed. It was going to be a long walk back to South Shore, and who the hell knew how long once he got there before he could find a phone. Fucking Snakes. He’d told him not to listen to this guy about the diamonds, and now look at this mess. He’d call his sister, he figured. She could drive in from Palos. Then he could get out some feelers, see how much shit he was in.
Up ahead, a gray Malibu pulled in off of South Shore and headed toward him. The car turned right about ten yards in front of him, blocking his path. The driver’s window slid down. Olive-skinned guy, hair slicked back neat, dark suit and tie. What the fuck? Did Corsco have somebody out on him already?
The man smiled. “Hello,” he said.
“Yeah, hi,” said Garbanzo.
“What is your business with Hardin?”
“Who the fuck are you, and what are you talking about?”
The man smiled again.” You and your dead companion abducted Nick Hardin from the Grant Park garage and drove him here. Sometime during that trip, he killed your friend and disarmed you. He then knocked you to the ground and threw stones at you until you told him what he wanted to know. Whatever trouble you may be in, and with whomever that trouble may be, you are already in it. I simply want to know what you’ve already told Hardin. And then I will be on my way.”
This actually made sense to Garbanzo. “Yeah, what the fuck. Tony Corsco sent us – Snakes DeGetano and me – to kill that Hardin fuck.”
“And who is Tony Corsco?” the smiling man asked.
“Jesus, second guy today hasn’t heard of Tony. Who the fuck are you people? Tony Corsco runs the goddamn mob.”
“I see. And what was his complaint with Mr Hardin?”
“Look, buddy, he don’t explain shit like that to me and Snake. He tells us kill some guy, then we kill him.”
“Thank you, you’ve been most helpful,” the smiling man said. Then he raised the .22 from his lap and shot Garbanzo three times through the forehead so quickly that Garbanzo hadn’t even twitched before the third round hit him.
Husam al Din drove back north up Lake Shore Drive. So the American mafia, too, had an interest in Hardin. With Stein dead, could Hardin be trying to sell them the diamonds? Had the mafia tried to steal them instead?
Al Din could not know. If not the diamonds, then some other business. But he did know this: guided by intel provided by Javadi from some asset with access to Chicago’s surveillance system, al Din had pulled into the garage just in time to see Hardin abducted by two armed professional criminals. They had searched him; Hardin had no weapon. Al Din had followed them south, and, by the time they arrived at the vacant land near the lake, one of the criminals was dead, Hardin was armed, and the other criminal was not. This Hardin was something more than an errand boy for television news people. It was fortuitous that al Din had learned this as a witness and not as an object lesson. He would have to approach this Hardin with care.
CHAPTER 15
When they were done with Telling, Lynch and Bernstein went back to the precinct, started going through red light camera shots from the intersection near the shelter. The problem was the camera only took a shot when someone ran the light, so they had to put all the shots in order, make a timeline, and see if they could pick out any likely cars. Lynch had the tech guy send up shots from the same time of day for a week before the shooting as well. Some of the cars popped up more than once. Had to be locals. They could rule them out.
Starting an hour or so before the game, each shot showed cars cruising the street, hoping to save the $35 it cost to park at the stadium. About forty minutes to tip-off, Bernstein got a clean shot of a Lexus backing into a spot and ran that plate. It was registered to a Harry Weber in Lisle.
“Christ,” Lynch said. “You park a car worth forty grand on that street, trying to save a few bucks?”
“No explaining people,” said Bernstein.
They flipped through the post-game shots, but the Lexus was gone about half an hour before the shooting at the shelter. Five minutes before game time, a black Escalade that had been parked one spot up from the shelter was gone, replaced by a medium gray sedan with a low roofline. There was an old Suburban in front of it, so they couldn’t make out much on the vehicle, just part of the roof and the top corner of the windshield on the driver’s side. Again, they flipped to the post-game shots. Somebody ran a light about ten minutes before the shooting and the car was still there. Next violation was twenty minutes later, and the car was gone.
“Looks like a Malibu,” said Bernstein. “One of the new ones.”
“Yeah,” said Lynch. “What’s that white spot on the windshield? Some kind of sticker?”
Lynch called the IT guy who had pulled the photos, gave him the ID number on the shot. The IT guy blew it up on his screen. He couldn’t get a lot of resolution, but he told Lynch it looked like one of the barcode stickers some of the rental car companies put on the windshields of their stock. Lynch asked him to run through any photos they had around the stadium a half-mile in every direction for the ten minutes before and the ten minutes after the first and last shots of the car, and get him the plate number of every gray Malibu – bonus points if it had the white sticker. Guy said he would, but it was going to take a day or so.
Lynch was about to grab some coffee when the desk sergeant called up from downstairs.
“Got an Ashley Urra here to see you. Says you talked to her out at the UC on the Stein thing?”
“OK,” said Lynch. “Send her up.”
Urra was less made up, her hair in a ponytail, wearing jeans and a Blackhawks jersey that was too big on her. It hung down off one shoulder, showing the strap to a running bra. Still perky. She sat in the chair next to Lynch’s desk. Bernstein rolled his chair around.
“So, Ms Urra. What can I do for you?”
“It’s about that man from Abe’s box – the one I thought I remembered? I saw him again today.”
Lynch sat up in his chair. “Where?”
“On TV. He was on Oprah. Well, not on Oprah, but on a clip they ran.”
“What?”
“You know Shamus Fenn is in town, right, shooting that film? Well, he was on Oprah, her Oscar special thing? They were talking about the child abuse stuff with him? You remember, that came out a few years ago? And they showed a clip from that big charity party they had in Africa from back then? When he got in a fight with that guy?”
Lynch had a vague recollection – some stupid drunk celebrity shit. “Yeah, OK, I remember that.”
“The guy from the box? He was the one who got in the fight with Seamus Fenn. That’s where I’d seen him. I mean I was in high school, but that video was all over the place back then.”
Jesus, thought Lynch. I got a dead zillionaire, a dead one-armed refugee, and now some mystery guest at an African charity party who got in a punch up with a movie star – and both him and the movie star are in town?
“The other guy,” Lynch asked, “they mention his name?”
“I wrote it down. Nick Hardin. They said his name was Nick Hardin.”
