Must Come Down

by Brett Baker

  No further discussion of what the job entailed appeared in the thread. Mia checked the call history, but Portnoy’s number only showed up one other time, on the day following the initial communication.

  Mia searched through the rest of the phone, but found no useable information. Had Randy not told her about the gold in the warehouse from weeks before, nothing she’d seen would have seemed suspicious. Drippy spent each night guarding an empty warehouse, which seemed a bit odd, but security guards protected real estate all the time.

  Since she had nothing else to go on, she had to find out who Gabe Portnoy was, and how he fit into the operation. But before she could take the next step in the investigation, she had to get rid of Drippy.

  She wiped off Drippy’s phone, just in case someone else reached him before The Summit’s removal team arrived. Then she left the warehouse to find a pay phone from which to dial the number that began the removal protocol. A simple phone call with an address, a description of the victim, and warnings to heed was all it took to get rid of a body.

  Mia had become very familiar with The Summit’s removal protocol over the years.

  25

  Chapter 25

  After Charlie left, Fabrice dialed Driscoll’s number, let it ring six times, and was just about to hang up when he answered. He sounded rushed. “Hello?”

  “So it turns out that the shipment never made it. That’s why we haven’t heard from Li or the crew,” Fabrice said.

  “Who is this?” Driscoll asked, a certain alarm in his voice.

  “Do you have many people who call to talk to you about shipments and Li? You should know who this is.”

  “Fabrice,” Driscoll said, as if the attitude in Fabrice’s voice provided the answer as much as the words he spoke.

  “That’s right.”

  “You made it to Quanzhou, I assume?”

  “I did. It’s been productive thus far. I have a tour guide. I’ve scoped out the warehouse at the airport that Li intended to use as the center for operations, and I’ve got a connection on the crew that he hired.”

  “The local crew?” Driscoll asked. “There in Quanzhou?”

  “That’s the one,” Fabrice said. “He’s a real paranoid type. Thinks that the Chinese government is out to get him.”

  “He’s probably right. They seem out to get everyone, but they put a lot of heat on their own people. Is he talking?”

  “He sought me out, so I think he wants to help. I talked to the crew at the warehouse and none of them were interested, but this guy came to me after the fact. He said that Li came to him and told him the plan, asked him to hire a crew.”

  “He knew about the plan?” Driscoll asked.

  “Yes. He mentioned gold. I didn’t say anything about it. He had the timeline correct. He said that when Li came to him he said it’d go down in a few months, but then Li moved up the timeline.”

  “So he knew it all.”

  “He did. He’s legit.

  “He didn’t know what happened to Li though?” Driscoll asked.

  “No. He expected a shipment to arrive a few days ago, but nothing came.”

  “And he hasn’t heard anything?”

  “Not since Li moved up the timeline.”

  “So we’re no better than we were before,” Driscoll said, a slight annoyance in his voice.

  “We know they didn’t ditch us,” Fabrice said. “I worried they landed here and they were going ahead with the plan, but that they didn’t tell us and they were trying to squeeze us out. That doesn’t seem to be the case. If the plane never made it, it never made it. Nothing we can do about that, unless we’re going to search the bottom of the Pacific.”

  “The plane never made it there,” Driscoll said. “Who knows if it went somewhere else.”

  “Is that what you think happened?”

  “I don’t know. That’s Buster’s theory. He found some papers that he thinks indicate that Li sold us out and decided to do business with some group in Singapore. And a couple of detectives came to talk to him yesterday because Li’s missing.”

  “Missing? Who says he’s missing?”

  “His wife. The police. The detectives told Buster that a friend of Li called Li’s wife to say that he planned to him in Singapore, but that Li never showed up.””

  “And they think Buster’s connected?”

  “They found Li’s car in the lot beneath his building. They know that the two of them have a history, so they’re just trying to piece it together. Doesn’t seem like they have a whole heck of a lot to go on though. Especially considering that Li has a history of disappearing.”

  “But he always comes back?” Fabrice asked.

  “Until now,” Driscoll said. “So what’s this guy in Quanzhou going to do for you? What’s his name?”

  “He won’t tell me his name,” Fabrice said. “Part of his paranoia. He thinks if he tells me his name the Chinese government will track him down and it’ll be curtains for him.”

  “He’s probably not far off base,” Driscoll said. “But what’s he going to do?”

  “Not much he can do. He’ll let us know if he hears from Li, but other than that, he’s got no connections. He’s not happy about missing out on the cash, but he can’t do anything to help.”

  “Then what are you going to do?”

  “Keep looking for Li, I guess,” Fabrice said. “Not much else I can do. Although if the police can’t find him then there’s probably not much hope for me finding him.”

  “Why don’t you get in touch with Buster?” Driscoll asked. “See if the two of you together can find Li.”

  “Isn’t Buster going to find it odd that I’m here?”

  “You’re looking for Li. He’s the cornerstone of the operation. It shouldn’t be odd that you’d come here to look for him. Buster doesn’t know that we were moving forward without him.”

  “Is Buster even looking for him?”

  “He thinks he’s gone to Singapore, so I don’t think so. I’m not convinced that’s what Li’s doing though. He understood how this thing was designed, and how everything relied on everything else. I can’t imagine he’d take the chance of pulling out and doing it himself. Hard to tell though. But I’m sure Buster has contacts around southeast Asia that might be helpful in figuring out what’s going on.”

  “And if Li’s gone to Singapore?” Fabrice asked.

  “Then Buster’s fucked, but we might still have something to say about it. After all, we control the gold here. They can’t work the money in Asia without the gold we have here. Besides, Li has to understand that it doesn’t make sense to mess with Singapore currency when China’s an option. Harder to do and less value even if we pull it off.”

  “We can’t do it without Li?” Fabrice asked. “I mean if we’ve got this guy from the airport, and we’ve got Buster, don’t we have it all covered? Why not just go ahead with it? Take Li’s plans and run with it.”

  “Li knew that Buster would refuse to move early on this. He was too set in his own thinking. But we knew that we had to act now or we’d miss out on billions of dollars. Since Buster refused to move, we had to go with another guy.”

  “I thought Li was the other guy,” Fabrice said. “My understanding was that Buster was in charge, and Li was his deputy, but a very capable one. With Buster out of the way Li was supposed to step up and take over. I was told it was going to be no problem. That’s the only reason I agreed to start early. But you’re saying Li didn’t take over Buster’s role, he just replaced Buster with someone else?”

  “That’s right,” Driscoll said. “Li can make things happen, but he doesn’t have the market knowledge that Buster has, not to mention the experience in international deals, monetary policy, and money markets. Li set the whole thing up, but we felt it too risky to rely on him to manage the markets and make deals once we got going. If he made a few mistakes he could lose the advantage we gained by starting early. So he found someone to replace Buster.”

  “Som
eone in Singapore?” Fabrice asked.

  “I sure as fuck hope not,” Driscoll said. “He had strict orders to keep it in China, and he said he knew half of Shanghai, so he was going to set it up there.”

  “Did he?”

  “I don’t know,” Driscoll said. “He didn’t tell us who he got. He said he’d bring details with him when he got to New York.”

  “So the guy who’s running half of this fucking operation is unknown to the guys running the other half?”

  “Yes, but Li knew. We planned to discuss it in New York. He told me he was reputable, reliable, smart. I wasn’t going to check him out anyway, so I accepted that.”

  “And now we don’t know who he is.”

  “That’s why you’re there,” Driscoll said.

  “I came here to find Li,” Fabrice said. “I didn’t know another Buster existed. It would have been nice to know that before. I should be searching for both of them. I can’t contact Buster. I can’t tell him, ‘I’m here to look for Li, and also the guy Li got to replace you.’”

  “Don’t tell him about his replacement,” Driscoll said. “Problem solved.”

  “Unintended consequences,” Fabrice said. “We may not want him to find out, but that doesn’t mean he won’t find out. Best to keep him in the dark, I think. I’ll find Li without Buster.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Up until that point Fabrice had faith in Driscoll’s ability to steer the operation. He always seemed capable, and his track record in various markets spoke for itself. But Driscoll had placed too much faith in Li, and failed to devise a way to keep Li in check, to ensure his loyalty. Fabrice had hoped that Driscoll might have advice on how to proceed, or that Buster might provide some help, even though they intended to eliminate him from the plan.

  But after talking with Driscoll, Fabrice realized that he could rely on no one but himself. And, he hoped, Dian.

  26

  Chapter 26

  A dozen blocks from the warehouse where Drippy took his last breath, in the middle of the business district adjacent to a residential neighborhood in El Segundo, a stairway led to a basement apartment beneath a coin and stamp hobby store. Accessible only from the alley behind the row of businesses, the stairway attracted no attention. Two large garbage cans blocked the entrance to the steps most of the time, and the proprietors of the hobby store had been told years before that the El Segundo police used the apartment as a retreat for informants. Since the proprietors had no interest in getting on the bad side of any law enforcement given their illegal status in the U.S., they asked no questions and paid no attention to those who visited the apartment below.

  Mia moved the garbage cans and descended the steps to the black steel door that led into the apartment. With no knob on the outside, the door appeared to only open from the inside. A small rectangular hole in the door gave the only clue to how it opened. Mia squatted and reached her hand beneath the door, in the narrow opening that no one would have ever noticed was wider than most doors. She curled her fingers upward, and felt the metal bar that sat on two pins near the bottom of the door. She slid the bar off the pins, and dragged it beneath the door. The bar acted as both a key and a handle as she inserted it into the rectangular hole to open the door.

  Beyond the door, a bouquet of two-dozen red roses sat on a table next to a large recliner, which faced the door. Every Roost around the world had the same general setup: the recliner, a couple of couches, a kitchen, a small table and at least two bedrooms with simple beds. The roses always seemed fresh, and one of the great unsolvable mysteries of The Summit was how they managed to replace the flowers at so many locations. Mia always appreciated the flowers though, as they provided another much-needed respite from the crazy intensity of life outside the Roost.

  After gaining entry, Mia surveyed the apartment, just to be sure no one else was inside. She’d never met anyone else inside a Roost, but there was nothing to keep two agents from occupying one at the same time. No one knew how many agents worked for The Summit, but she’d encountered other agents in the field on more than one occasion, and she knew that most big cities had more than one agent, so it made sense that she’d encounter one in a Roost one day.

  But at that moment, she had the Roost to herself. She looked out a window in the back bedroom—the single window in the apartment—to make sure nothing seemed odd on the street. Satisfied with the security she’d come to expect at a Roost, she returned to the living room, picked up the phone and started to dial the number to Polestar.

  Because the success of most missions relied on secrecy and secure communication, agents in The Summit preferred to interact with sources and allies face-to-face. However, when that wasn’t possible—such as with any communication involving Polestar—the phone designed by The Summit provided the next best thing. It looked like a relic of the 1980s with its bulky design and spiral cords, but The Summit’s technology insured that no one other than the parties on each end of the line could detect the conversation. It couldn’t be wiretapped or recorded. Only those involved in the call ever knew that it took place.

  Mia dialed the number to her current contact at Polestar, and a man with a high-pitched, whispery voice said, “This is Martin.” Mia identified herself, and Martin continued, “What can I do for you, Mia? I assume that you didn’t call me to chat.”

  “No, I didn’t. I’m calling for background on someone. I’m not sure if Polestar has a file on him or not.”

  “What’s the name?”

  “Well, actually two names. I’ll give you the first, and depending on what you have on him, I might need to check a second name.”

  “All right. Let’s go one at a time. Who’s our first victim?”

  “Gabe Portnoy. He’s got an L.A. number, but I don’t know if that means anything. That’s all I’ve got on him, so anything you’ve got will be helpful.”

  “Hold on. Let me take a look.” Mia sat in the recliner and stared at the floor, ready to focus on whatever information Martin had. Most agents with The Summit preferred not to write down anything for fear of information falling into the hands of people who shouldn’t have it. Mia had developed techniques for memorizing names, numbers, and details that might make the difference between life and death, or at least success and failure.

  Martin spoke after three minutes of silence, his soft voice with a sudden edge. “Gabe Portnoy, former resident of Bayonne, New Jersey, New York City, Highland Park, California. As of three months ago he lived in Malibu, although a note here says that he just placed his house on the market. Could be that it has sold by now. Doesn’t look like we have any recent updates.”

  “Why do we know about him?”

  “Looks like he appeared on our radar in the early 2000s due to his involvement with a Wall Street case. You might remember. Security company CEO was indicted for illegal appropriation of funds. Feds said that he stole a hundred million dollars from the company. When he went on trial some rather distasteful items became public. Like most filthy rich guys he had expensive tastes. Media had a field day with gold toilets, thousand-dollar shower curtains, vacation villas. The biggest story involved a birthday party in Sardinia for him and a few hundred of his closest friends. They had ice sculptures that pissed vodka.”

  “Yeah, I remember that,” Mia said. “He went to prison didn’t he?”

  “Sure did. Half a dozen years or something. Anyway, when the birthday party in Sardinia came to light, it drew the ire of a crime family in New York. Turns out the party took place at the family’s estate, and although they’d kept a lid on it for five years, the family wasn’t thrilled it was in the news. No one knew the family owned the estate. Feds didn’t uncover it, reporters didn’t uncover it. Still made the family nervous though. Since the CEO was under such heavy scrutiny, the family had to be careful in their communications with him. The last thing they needed was for anyone to realize this CEO had ties to them, or vice versa, but they still needed to make their displeasure known to the guy. Po
rtnoy just happened to be the perfect guy for the job.”

  “How so? Was he connected to the mob?”

  “That’s unclear. As far as we can tell he had some friends in Bayonne who somehow knew some of the family.”

  “He knew a guy who knew a guy?” Mia asked.

  “Something like that. Seems like he was just detached enough so they didn’t taint him, but close enough that they trusted him. Gave him small jobs to start, and then all of a sudden this CEO situation turns up, and they take a chance on Portnoy. They tell him to go talk to the CEO, express their displeasure, make sure that his mouth is shut and he upholds the silence.”

  “The only things the Feds like more than taking down a CEO is taking down organized crime,” Mia said.

  “That’s right. And if you know that, then you can bet your ass that the family knows that. So they send Portnoy in there to make sure that the CEO doesn’t have any ideas about supplying information related to the family in exchange for leniency in his own case.”

  “Do we know how Portnoy went about that?”

  “No,” Martin said. “Looks like he paid him a few visits, but the CEO had so many people on his legal team coming and going that the Feds couldn’t tell who was who. We had a hard enough time keeping track of him, and we’re better at that than the feds.”

  “So The Summit was on this?”

  “Not really,” Martin said. “We observed. We had no associated mission, but anytime something like this is going down it’s always good to observe and collect whatever information we can. As you can imagine, an organization like Polestar isn’t built without good information.”

  “Of course. But what happened to Portnoy?”

  “Well, he must have conveyed the message because the family’s ties to that estate in Sardinia are still a secret. Only a handful of people in the world know about it, and now you’re one of them. I’m sure that made the family happy, so they gave him more assignments, and his future looked bright there. We tracked him to Sardinia for a few months. He spent some time in Sicily and Miami, also. But it didn’t take long before he started showing up all over Manhattan. If a firm had the slightest connection to any financial service, Gabe Portnoy showed up.”