Must Come Down

by Brett Baker

  Buster and Driscoll had arranged some deal that involved Li. Driscoll tried to betray Buster with Li’s help, but Li betrayed both of them. Now Buster planned to end the whole thing to save himself and to punish Driscoll and Li for betraying him. Simple enough. But important aspects of the situation still escaped Mia.

  What plan were they referring to? Buster said that he’d save the economy by turning in Driscoll and Li. Did the plan threaten the economy? He mentioned making billions of dollars. Is the plan really on such a large scale, or did Buster exaggerate? Buster mentioned Quanzhou, which Mia knew was in China, but did the plan require Chinese involvement?

  Mia knew she needed details of the plan before deciding how to proceed. Good and bad is often murky in Mia’s missions for The Summit, but in this instance things seemed even more convoluted than usual. Is Buster saving himself or the economy? Is Driscoll an innocent victim, or a predator that must be stopped? Where does Li factor into this? Can all sides be bad? If this is just a civil issue should Mia act at all?

  Her training with The Summit taught her to evaluate every angle before acting, but her years of experience cultivated an instinctual ability to get a feel for a situation as soon as she observed it. And as she stared at the floor, trying to untangle the story she’d just heard, she had a feeling that in this situation there were no innocent parties.

  37

  Chapter 37

  The second conversation began with the familiar tones of a dialed phone number. The interceptor began recording as soon as a phone started ringing for an incoming call, or as soon as the first number was dialed for an outgoing call. After a couple of clicks and then a short delay, Mia heard two rings, and then a voice, in Chinese, saying something that she couldn’t decipher.

  “Does anyone there speak English?”

  “Yes, sir. Of course. You have reached the Wanda Vista Quanzhou. How may I help you?”

  “Can I have room 1408, please?”

  “Yes, sir. Of course. Hold one moment and thank you for dialing the Wanda Vista Quanzhou.”

  Two quick beeps indicated the call was being transferred, and then another voice.

  “Yes?”

  “Fabrice?”

  “Yes, who is this?”

  “Neil Driscoll. I’m sorry to bother you, but this is rather urgent. Do you have a minute to talk?”

  “Sure. I was just going to dinner, but it can wait. I’m afraid I don’t have any news to report from here. No luck finding Li. Have you talked to Buster?”

  “I just got off the phone with him, and that’s why I’m calling. He found Li. Or, rather, Li found him.”

  “Great news,” Fabrice said. “Does he know anything about the missing shipment? Where’s he been?”

  “It wasn’t civil. Li attacked Buster, and now Buster’s threatening to end the whole thing. He’s really unhinged and I’m afraid of what he might do.”

  “What do you mean Li attacked Buster? Attacked him how?”

  “Physically attacked him. Beat the shit out of him, if you believe what Buster says. Broken ribs, separated shoulder. Buster wasn’t happy about it, of course. And he’s still convinced that Li’s screwing us, and he found out that we were trying to screw him, so he just wants to bring down the whole fucking thing now. He’s a fucking nightmare.”

  “Have you talked to Li?”

  “No, I haven’t heard from him. I hung up with Buster two minutes ago. I’ll try to track down Li, but I’m half a world away, and I don’t think he wants to be found, so I’m not certain I can do it. That’s why I called you.”

  “I’ve been looking for Li for days and I’ve had no luck. I don’t know that it will be any easier just because he’s surfaced.”

  “I don’t care about Li right now. We’ll worry about him later. We have to get rid of Buster. If he’s going to tear us down we need to get to him first. That’s why I called you.”

  “He’s in Quanzhou, and I’m sure he’s easy to find,” Fabrice said, “but I don’t know that he’ll listen to anything I have to say. I’m not sure he’ll know who I am. We’ve met, but I’m sure he meets people all the time.”

  “You’re a major player in this operation. He’ll know who you are. He’ll know your name. But I’m not interested in getting him to listen to you. He’s beyond that point. We can’t reason with him. We just have to get rid of him.”

  “Are you trying to buy him out?” Fabrice asked.

  “We need to kill him,” Driscoll said. “We can’t beat around the bush on this. He’s made his stance clear, and it’s unacceptable. We’ve put too much into this operation to let him tear it apart. This isn’t something I take lightly, but we have no other choice.”

  “Neil, I think you’re speaking from emotion here. I know Buster’s frustrating, and I’m sure he’s angry that Li attacked him, but when he calms down he’ll see there’s no way for him to remain clean in this, and he’ll rethink his stance. He’s in too deep, and way past the point of no return. If he tries to get immunity in exchange for toppling this, no prosecutor will go for it. He’s an integral part in all of this. He is the big fish. So he may think he’s going to take us down, but it won’t work.”

  “That’s not a chance I’m willing to take. I want him gone as soon as possible.”

  “This isn’t something we can do. The gold, the currency, the markets, we can do that. We can’t do this. We can’t kill someone, Neil. That’s not how this works. I hope you didn’t call me to ask me to kill Buster, because I won’t do it. I can’t believe you’re even thinking about such a thing. You’re talking about a man’s life here. This isn’t some abstract market correction, or stealing money that doesn’t exist. This is killing a person. That’s not what we do.”

  “Fabrice, we brought you into this because we thought you were committed. I mean, a couple of the other guys thought you were a fuck up, and we’d talked about kicking you out. I defended you though. You came with good recommendations. I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt. And then you volunteered to go to China to find Li and that shipment, and it seemed like a real turning point to me. You seemed committed, involved. I was impressed. Don’t back out now.”

  “There’s a difference between being committed and involved in a business venture and killing a man. The fact that you can’t see the difference tells me that perhaps I shouldn’t have become involved in any of this to begin with. Maybe the whole damn thing was a mistake and I’m just wasting my time. I’ll tell you one thing though, if you’re looking for someone to kill another person so I don’t lose money, I’m not that man.”

  “This isn’t about money anymore. Do you like freedom? That’s what Buster’s trying to take from you now, Fabrice. He’s going to the authorities and he’s going to sell you out to cover his own ass. If you want to spend the rest of your life in prison, then don’t do anything about this. But I called you because I believe in you and I thought you’d understand the urgency.”

  “We can’t start killing people. It’s not that kind of operation. When we first started this you said we were going to make billions of dollars by out-thinking everyone else. You didn’t say anything about killing anyone. Buster’s an obstacle now, but we just have to out-think him.”

  “Fuck you, Fabrice,” Driscoll said. “I thought I could count on you, but you’re too soft for this. You have no backbone. No gravitas. Forget it. I’ll find someone else to take care of it. But keep in mind, you’re dead weight now. You’re bringing us down. I won’t keep dead weight. Consider yourself warned.”

  “Neil, I think you’re being unreason…”

  The phone hung up in the middle of the sentence, and Fabrice didn’t get to complete his thought. The interceptor indicated one more available recording, which Mia tried to listen to right away, but all she heard was the sound of a ringing phone. Driscoll never picked up.

  Mia leaned forward in her chair and replayed the conversation. She assumed that Fabrice was in Quanzhou, and that Buster didn’t know he was ther
e. And despite Fabrice’s contention that Buster couldn’t trade details of the plan in exchange for his own immunity, Mia thought it sounded like a plausible way out for Buster.

  During her time in The Summit, Mia had surmised that almost everyone who killed someone thought they had a good reason for doing it. Murder without motive was rare. Finding the true motive behind a murder often proved difficult though. And although on the surface it seemed like Driscoll hoped to preserve his freedom by having Buster murdered, Mia knew that Buster’s threat to unravel the deal is what scared Driscoll the most. Driscoll knew that men like him rarely went to jail for the crimes they committed, but deals unraveled all the time. And even if smart attorneys could bribe juries to keep him from going to jail, Driscoll knew that they couldn’t save an illegal deal worth billions. Driscoll wanted Buster dead to save the deal, not to save himself.

  Despite Driscoll’s intention, Mia could save Buster’s life. But what she really wanted was to derail Driscoll’s deal without Buster going free. And she knew that before she could do that, she had know what the deal was.

  38

  Chapter 38

  Mia always enjoyed working in small cities and towns around the world because each one had a character of its own. But remote operations in those areas often presented challenges, not the least of which involved the lack of a nearby Roost.

  New York City did not have that problem. There were at least a dozen Roosts within the metropolitan area, and Mia had visited most of them at least once. She’d been to New York countless times, and had run into almost as many problems. She once joked with a Polestar representative that she felt like she’d called for background on every resident of the city.

  So when she entered the Roost in a converted video store near 37th and 6th, it felt more like home than most other Roosts. They had all similar layouts inside, but the environment surrounding them always differed. She checked the space as always, and finding no one else around she dialed her number at Polestar and had Martin on the line seconds later.

  “Where are you calling from, Mia? Still in Los Angeles?”

  “No, I’m in New York now. Same case. Different coast. I’m calling for updates.”

  “Who are we talking about?” Martin asked.

  “Two names. Neil Driscoll is the first. I know his background so I don’t need that. I don’t think it’s important. But do we have anything recent on him? He’s involved in some sort of deal and I’ve got to figure out what’s going on. Let me know if you have anything at all, no matter how unimportant it seems.”

  Martin paused and reviewed Driscoll’s file. Mia knew a file would exist for him since he had attained success in such a high profile industry. Most of the time when she called Polestar she didn’t even know what kind of information she hoped to learn, and she felt the same way while waiting for Martin to return. She had such poor information about Driscoll’s involvement with whatever was happening that any information might be useful.

  “We don’t have anything,” Martin said. “The last notes on him were from a couple of years ago. He had some contacts with some organized crime figures who were indicted and went to prison, but he seemed clean. Just informational. We didn’t plan to act on it.”

  “I didn’t expect you to have anything, but it’d be nice if you did.”

  “He’s clean for now. Who else are you looking for?”

  “Well this is a longshot,” Mia said. “In fact, I don’t even have a last name. Driscoll talked to him on the phone, and I know he has a business relationship with him, but that’s where my info ends.”

  “We can’t do much without last names,” Martin said. “Unless you’re looking for Madonna, or Cher, or someone like that, I’m afraid we can’t help you, but we’ll try. What’s the first name?”

  “Buster.”

  “That’s it? Buster? Don’t hold your breath, Mia.” Mia listened as Martin tapped on some keys and then rustled some papers. He went silent for a moment, but then came on the phone and said, “Too general. The database doesn’t handle first-name-only searches very well.”

  “Didn’t think so,” Mia said.

  “I’m sorry, that doesn’t give you very much to go on.”

  “No, it doesn’t at all. But actually, I just remember he’s in Quanzhou, China. Does that help.”

  Martin searched, and returned with the same disappointing response. “We don’t have anything on him, but there can’t be very many guys named Buster in a place like Quanzhou. I’m sure you can find him. If he does business with people like Driscoll then I suspect he’s rather high profile.”

  “You’re probably right,” Mia said. “I just have to go there and dig around.” Just before Mia hung up she had the sort of out-of-the-blue, game-changing thought that often struck her and helped her handle situations that most others couldn’t. “Can you check one more?”

  “Sure, that’s why I’m here,” Martin said.

  “Randy Leoni,” Mia said. “He’s Secret Service, so I suspect he’s in D.C., but I guess he could be anywhere.”

  “You want background or updates?”

  “Actually, I just have three questions. Is he Secret Service? Should we trust him? Where does he live?”

  “Simple enough,” Martin said. “Just give me a minute.” A minute turned into two minutes, and three minutes, and then five. Mia began to grow impatient, but then she remembered that inquiries on government agents often took longer because of the steps taken to protect them. She’d just decided to tell Martin that she’d check back with him later when he said, “This guy’s the real deal. We’ve got his personnel file and it goes back to the beginning and he’s nothing but stellar. I’d say we should trust him. Do you need help with a cover story to present to him?”

  “Not this time,” Mia said. “I think I can be wide open on this.” She left out the part about having told him most of the secrets related to The Summit.

  “He’s in D.C.” Martin gave her Randy’s phone number and e-mail address and reminded her that The Summit took protection of information related to government representatives very seriously. “Do you think he knows Buster?”

  “I doubt it, but that’s not what I need from him. He’s going to watch things while I’m gone.”

  “Where are you going?” Martin asked, ready to record into his database even the most minor, irrelevant piece of information related to an agent of The Summit.

  “China. Where else?”

  39

  Chapter 39

  Randy Leoni was a night owl, and like most night owls he’d long ago convinced himself that he performed better at night than during the day. So for as long as he’d worked for the Secret Service he preferred to work late into the night, which often necessitated a late start to the day. So when the phone rang at his desk just after ten o’clock, he hadn’t yet finished his coffee, and was surprised to see that someone was trying to reach hm. Most other agents in the area knew that he didn’t get into the office until late in the morning, so they wouldn’t have tried to reach him so early. Randy almost ignored the call, figuring that anyone who would call him so early didn’t know him, and thus wasn’t someone he wanted to talk to at such an ungodly hour. But after seven rings he changed his mind and decided to reward the caller’s persistence.

  “Randy Leoni,” he said, picking up the receiver while taking a bite out of a powdered donut that left a ring of white around his mouth.

  “Is this the great and powerful Randy Leoni?” Mia asked.

  “So great and powerful you can’t even imagine,” Randy said. “Is this the cowardly lion or Dorothy that I’m talking to?”

  “It’s the only person who can match your greatness and power, the one and only Mia Mathis.”

  Randy responded with ten seconds of silence, and then spoke in a whisper, “Are you sure you want to call me here and now? That seems a little risky.”

  “I don’t have a choice. But it’s not risky from my side of things. How’s it look on your side? Will we b
e tarred and feathered for this?”

  “Should be fine,” Randy said. “As far as I know this call is just you and me.”

  “Good,” Mia said. “Can you talk at the moment, or is it too crowded?”

  “Go ahead. What would you like to talk about?”

  “I’m calling to see if you’ve made any progress on the gold situation.”

  “I’m quite surprised to hear from you. I thought we’d already come to the end of the road. That’s what you mentioned the last time we saw each other. What made you reconsider?”

  “Circumstances,” Mia said. “I need some help and securing help from a colleague can be a time consuming process, unless they’re already up to date on the situation, and as far as I know the rest of the guys we talked aren’t in New York right now, so they can help either.”

  “You know I’m in D.C., right?”

  “Close enough.”

  “I hope your job doesn’t depend on geography.”

  “Golly fuck, I know where we are,” Mia said. “Don’t you worry about that. But what’s interesting to me now is where you stand on gold. Any progress, or are we still grasping at straws?”

  “Nothing,” Randy said. “I’m no more enlightened than when I left that ship. Are you any better?”

  “A little bit. I still don’t know what’s happening, but I’ve locked down some of the culprits. I’ve got a few names, a couple of conversations, and I’ll go from there.”

  “What can I do?” Randy asked.

  “One of the guys involved is a New York investment guy named Neil Driscoll.”