Mirage Man

by Trace Conger

  "I don't know where he is," she said.

  "You Brick’s wife?"

  "That's right. Haven't seen him in a month."

  That made sense. Brick was probably sticking close to Nicky. He wasn't likely to surface in case of an ambush. That also explained the brother. He probably moved in to protect his sister.

  "I'm sorry for the tussle, but I only came here to talk. If you speak to Brick—if he calls or comes home—ask him to contact me." I swiped the small whiteboard and dry-erase marker from the refrigerator, wrote down my cell number, and handed it to Brick's wife. "Connor Harding."

  "How do I know you're who you say you are?"

  "Tell Brick what I told you about me working for Joseph. Give him that number and have him call me. I'll explain everything to him. I know they're underground, and I can get them out of all this, but I have to find them first."

  They both stared at me with awkward glances, probably trying to figure out if I was really there to help Brick and Nicky or not.

  I staggered past Brick's wife and her brother, keeping a hand inside my jacket on my weapon just in case they had another round in them. Their eyes followed me to the front door.

  The feeling was returning to my right arm as I left the brownstone and went back to my Jeep. I sat in my vehicle, closed my eyes and thought about my next move. I couldn't shake the feeling the beach house was somehow connected to Nicky's whereabouts. The more I thought about that house, the more I wondered if Sontag had any other properties he kept in his back pocket, tucked away from everyone, even those closest to him.

  For a career criminal, Sontag has a smart head on his shoulders. He was the type of person who would keep a property off the books just to have a place to disappear to if the need arose. A place only Nicky might know about. There was one way to find out. Time for some research.

  Bed-Stuy's public library was on Franklin Avenue, a few blocks away. It was a square brick building with two globe lamps flanking the main entrance like an old fashioned police station. After filling out a short form promising I wouldn't use their computers for anything illegal, they gave me a sign-in code. A few minutes later, I was accessing the auditor's website for Fairfield County, Connecticut. I plugged in the address for Sontag's beach house and scanned the property profile. It only took a few seconds to find it. A company called the Triton Partnership purchased the property in 2012. The Triton Partnership was likely a shell company Sontag set up to protect his identity. It was a good bet if Sontag bought any other properties, he purchased them using the same company.

  I went back to the Fairfield County Auditor's main webpage and ran another search. This time, instead of plugging in a property address, I searched for the Triton Partnership. Two properties. The beach house and another home on Wolver Hollow Road in Brookville, New York. I'd never heard any mention of that property. I searched for the address and found an aerial view of the property. The place looked like a compound. It was surrounded by a wall and was at least four times larger than the beach house. A perfect place to hide out. I checked the distance. It was on Long Island, only an hour-and-a-half from the library. I jotted down the address on a piece of scrap paper, stashed it in my front jeans pocket and headed for the door.

  The sun was clocking out when I left the library. I'd rather scope out Sontag's newly found property in the dark anyway. It would be easier to get onto the grounds under cover of darkness, but it would also be easier to tell if anyone was living there. The beach house was deserted, and it's possible this one was too. If the place were lit up, however, at least I'd have some indication someone was there. Of course, lights could be on timers, but watching the place for a few minutes would tell me if someone was inside or not. I turned the corner and walked toward my car parked in the library's back lot.

  The good feeling I carried out of the library disappeared when something cold struck me at the base of my skull. My entire body went numb, and as I staggered forward unable to keep my balance, my vision blurred. The single streetlamp in front of me became two, three, and then four white orbs of vibrating light. Then I heard a voice behind me and everything went dark.

  17

  An Old Friend

  When I came to, I was in the trunk of a car and we were moving. My brain felt like a puzzle someone dropped on the floor. All the pieces were there, but they weren't in the right order. I tried to reach up and inspect the back of my head to make sure everything was still on the inside, but I couldn't move my arms. They were cinched behind me. It felt like a zip tie.

  My fractured thoughts flashed back to the silver SUV that had been following me when I drove out to Sontag's beach house, but this wasn't an SUV. From the size of the trunk, I was in a mid-sized sedan. My face was pressed into the trunk's carpet, and every breath I drew in brought a flood of bleach vapor into my lungs. My nasal passages and chest burned. I had no idea how long I'd been inhaling the stuff.

  My current situation was bad, but it was going to plummet when this car stopped and that trunk lid opened. There's only one reason a car smells like bleach; someone had cleaned up a mess. A biological mess. And they were likely prepared to do it again.

  If I could get my hands free, I'd have a chance. Maybe I could find a tire iron or a road flare to use as a weapon, or I could simply come out swinging. But if I couldn't get out of these ties, I wouldn't be putting up much of a fight.

  Zip ties and duct tape are the easiest restraints to escape. They might look intimidating, but if you know what you're doing, it doesn't take much effort to break them. All it requires is momentum. If restrained from the front, all you have to do is raise your arms above their head, bring them down with as much force as possible and pull your wrists apart when you reach your waist. The force generated will snap most restraints in two. That's tougher when restrained from behind, as you're limited to how high you can raise your arms. The maneuver still works, although it takes several attempts. Unfortunately, the trunk didn't give me much room to move. Using my right shoulder, I scooted myself as close to the trunk latch as I could, creating more space between the rear wall of the trunk and my hands. Then I curled up into the fetal position, which allowed me to get more range of motion. I lifted my hands as far back as possible and slammed them down onto my tailbone, forcing my wrists apart. My first shot didn't do anything, so I tried again and then again. With each attempt, my heart pumped faster and my lungs expanded wider to keep up. More bleach singed my insides. My throat felt like a charcoal briquette.

  The inside of the trunk glowed red—the brake lights. I worked the restraints again and felt the locking mechanism give way. It didn't break, but it loosened enough I could slip my hands out. More brake lights, and then the vehicle took a right turn off the road. Did they hear me in the trunk?

  The brake lights illuminated the trunk again, and I used the few seconds of brightness to scan the inside of the trunk, looking for anything I could use as a weapon. There was nothing in here except me and the bleach-soaked carpet. I ripped the carpet up from the floor, feeling around for a panel. Most cars have a spare tire compartment, which might have a jack, a tool kit or something useful in a situation like this.

  The car stopped as my fingers found the handle to the spare compartment. I scooted toward the rear seat to give me more room and jerked on the cover, buckling it in two. I blindly searched the compartment as feet pounded the asphalt outside the vehicle. As my fingers raked the inside of the bin searching for anything I could use, someone else's fingers ran along the outside of the trunk looking for the release. They found what they were looking for before I did and the truck sprang open. Fresh air rushed in, overpowering the bleach fumes.

  The sun had already set and I couldn't focus enough to identify the man standing over me. In the blackness of the trunk, I didn't realize how much the blow to my head—or maybe it was the lingering bleach vapors—had screwed up my vision. It wasn't until he opened his mouth that I realized why I was here.

  "Alfie O'Bannon says hello."

>   The man above me drove two meaty fists into my gut, probably rupturing something important. Then he grabbed my arm and jerked me out of the trunk, nearly dislocating my shoulder. I fell to the ground and realized I was in a parking lot. The man I didn't recognize kicked me in the ribs.

  "That's enough," said someone else. I looked back and saw the second man. He was tall and thin. The man with the fists and size-thirteen wingtips was on the heavy side. The bigger man grabbed both my wrists and dragged me across the asphalt. The other man leaned inside the car and returned with a sawed-off shotgun. A moment later, I was sitting on a beat-to-shit park bench.

  The lean man pointed the shotgun at my head from six feet away while his partner pulled a smartphone from his pocket and tapped the screen. A few seconds later I was staring at Alfie O'Bannon.

  "Hello, Connor. Surprised to see me?"

  "Honestly, yes. I didn't think I'd have to deal with you until I got back to Boston. How's the leg?"

  "Still hurts like a bitch. But I'm going to be just fine. You, on the other hand, are not."

  "I gathered that. I suppose there isn't anything I can say to make you reconsider your decision here?"

  "No," said O'Bannon. "I just wanted my face to be the last thing you saw before my friend here blows you into little pieces and tosses the chunks into the woods."

  O'Bannon's face was becoming more vivid by the second. My vision was improving.

  "I'm sure we can strike a deal," I said.

  "No, son. We can't."

  Another vehicle, a silver SUV, pulled into the lot and parked next to the sedan.

  "Hang on, boss," said the man with the shotgun. "We've got company."

  "Get rid of them."

  He tucked the shotgun behind him and walked toward the car. The big man and the cell phone still faced me.

  A second later, two quick pops echoed through the darkness.

  "What was that?" said O'Bannon.

  "I'll tell you what it wasn't," I said. "It wasn't a shotgun."

  The big man swatted me off the bench with a right hook. Wiping the dirt from my eyes, I watched as a woman in a beige trench coat and red high-heeled shoes approached. I tried to focus to make out more details, but she stood outside of the wash from the overhead lights.

  "What's going on?" said O'Bannon.

  The big man tossed the phone onto the ground and reached for a revolver inside his pants. Before he cleared it, two shots tore through his chest. He rolled across the end of the park bench and slumped to the dirt next to me.

  I picked up the cell phone and held it in front of me. "Looks like someone had other plans," I said. "I'll see you when I get back to Boston, Alfie." I stood up, wiped the prints from the cell phone, and threw it as far as I could into the woods.

  The woman in the trench coat tucked her weapon into a holster on her hip. She leaned down in front of me, and for the first time, I recognized her. Special Agent in Charge Valerie Cheatham.

  "What are you doing here?" I said.

  "I couldn't lose my CI now, could I?"

  18

  Coming Clean

  I haven't been completely honest. Porter and Zoe suspected there was a mole inside Sontag's organization, someone who had provided the feds with enough evidence to bring Sontag down. They were right about the mole, but they didn't know it was me. If anyone in Sontag's Clan knew I had aided a federal investigation, they would have cut out my tongue, slit me down the middle, and stapled me to a billboard in Times Square.

  I started working with the FBI three years ago when an NYPD cruiser pulled me over on Third Street. Two men who weren’t dressed in NYPD uniforms introduced themselves as agents with the FBI and politely asked me to follow them to the cruiser. One of the agents had his hand tucked inside his JCPenney suit jacket, gripping what I assumed was a government-issued weapon.

  They escorted me to the cruiser, where I slipped in the back seat. That’s where I met Valerie Cheatham, who was sitting, legs crossed, waiting for me. She introduced herself and then didn’t say another word until we arrived at the FBI office in Newark, New Jersey.

  At the field office, Valerie led me through a cubical farm where several people made an effort to get a glimpse of me. She showed me into a conference room. It was small; six chairs were neatly tucked tight against a white table.

  “Have a seat,” she said. “I’ll be back in a second.”

  She returned about five minutes later with two men and a folder. I sat down after they did.

  “I’ll cut right to it, Connor. We know you’re working with Joseph Sontag and we want some information from you.”

  “I wish you would have mentioned this earlier. It would have saved me a trip to New Jersey.”

  Valerie motioned to the man on my left. His white dress shirt was too tight and he kept running his finger between his Adam’s apple and his tie knot.

  “You did quite a stint in military intelligence,” he said. “Assignments in Germany, Russia, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq. Part of your military records are locked, so you must have been into some serious shit.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Quite a few awards here. Must have been pretty good.”

  He looked at me, waiting for a response, but I kept my mouth shut.

  “Then, Mosul happened.”

  He pulled out another sheet of paper, which I recognized from the seal at the top and the signature at the bottom. The seal belonged to the US Army’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps. The signature belonged to me. It was a confession.

  “Dishonorable discharge,” he said, skimming the document. “Two high-value targets… Interrogations… Multiple violations… Articles 128 and 134 of the Uniform Code. Stop me if any of this sounds wrong.”

  “No, that’s all correct,” I said.

  “How many Iraqis did you interrogate?”

  “Too many to count?”

  “How many did you torture to death?”

  “Just one.”

  “That something the army frowns upon, is it? Torturing detainees?”

  “One day it was legal, and the next it wasn’t,” I said. “It was an accident.”

  “So it cost you your career and five years in Leavenworth.”

  “They made an example out of you,” said Valerie.

  “Something like that.”

  The man in the tight shirt continued. “So you leave Kansas and turn up in New York City. Is that when you started working for Sontag?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “We know you’re working for him,” said Valerie. “I imagine someone with your skill set is a vital member of his organization.”

  “Lets cut the shit,” I said. “Make your ask so I can say no and get on with my day.”

  Valerie smiled and leaned forward. “We’re building a case against Sontag, and you’re going to help us.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You are. You just don’t know it yet.”

  I glanced at all three agents and waited to see who was going to make the pitch.

  “You’re trying to figure out what leverage we have, right?” said Valerie. “You don’t think we’d drag you all the way out here without something concrete?”

  They were toying with me.

  “You’ve got nothing on me,” I said.

  “That’s right,” said Valerie. “We don’t have anything on you. You covered your tracks pretty well. Not surprising for someone with your background. You’re careful. Meticulous.” Valerie smiled. “I can’t say the same about your father.”

  “Out with it,” I said.

  Valerie nodded to the agent sitting across from me, who tossed me a folder. It had crimped corners like it had been jammed in a file cabinet door a few times.

  “Albert Harding has quite the record,” he said.

  I opened the folder to find Albert’s black and white mug shot staring back at me. “What do you have on him?”

  “Mitch Skinner, I assume you know who that is?”

  Mi
tch Skinner was one of my father’s longtime friends. He was about the same age as Albert and did odd jobs in the backwoods of Maine to earn a living. He was usually on the right side of wrong, but like my father, he was keen to get into trouble now and then. As I kid, I remember him running a moonshine operation and a numbers racket. None of his schemes ever turned a considerable profit, but they generated enough income that he never had to take a legitimate nine-to-five.

  “What about him?” I said.

  “He and your father fucked up,” said the agent. “I’ve got both of them for stealing federal property, a game warden’s patrol boat.”

  I knew what he was talking about. The business about the stolen boat happened years ago. Mitch and my father ran into trouble with some asshole named Ollie something-or-other. Ollie ran a junkyard outside of Meddybemps, Maine and was what you might call the local crime boss. He was more Keystone Cop than Al Capone, but he was still a dangerous man. Last I heard, he was locked up for real estate fraud. But before that, he did time for stealing a game warden’s patrol boat. He didn’t so much as take the boat, rather the local PD found it on his property. Mitch and my father were the reason it got there.

  "That's what you got?” I said. “A stolen boat?"

  "It's a federal crime, Connor. He stole it from a game warden. And the value of the property is more than five grand. It's an easy conviction."

  "He'll plead out. He's an old man. No judge is going to sentence him to prison. You're full of shit."

  "He's got a record,” said the man. “Sentencing guidelines dictate he'll do three to five years even if he pleads out. And once he's on the inside, I doubt he lasts long. I hear he has a mouth on him. I'll wager he gets shivved after less than a week inside. That's if he survives the trial. He'll likely keel over from the stress.”

  “All I need to do is make a call and they’ll pick up your father,” said Valerie. “He's screwed, Connor. Unless you help me.”