8
The Exchange
At 8:15 on Monday morning, Detectives Gower and Johnson sat across the desk from O’Brian in his office at the Solomon Island Casino Resort. CSI had finished processing the casino, hotel lobby and restaurant yesterday, but uniformed officers were still searching the island.
“What can I do for you?” O’Brian asked.
“Mr. O’Brian,” Detective Gower said, “thanks for meeting us so early. Yesterday we counted four employees missing after the kidnapping. I sent over ten driver’s license copies.”
“I’ve got them right here.” O’Brian tapped a stack of paper on his desk.
“Did any match?”
O’Brian shifted in his seat. “Could you tell me where you got these photos?”
Gower shook his head. “Police business.”
“Two of them are hotel employees. A receptionist and a maintenance technician. They’re on top.”
Gower looked at the pictures. JB Turner and Lulu Osmond. Two of the five bodies from the van that left the Fifth Street warehouse. He passed them to Johnson.
O’Brian continued. “We haven’t been able to get in touch with them.”
“You won’t be able to. They’re in police custody.”
“Really? You think they’re connected with this crime?”
“All I can say is that they’re part of our investigation. Thanks for your help.”
Gower and Johnson stood up.
“Detective, I’d like to get our contractor in here working on the repairs. Do you know when you’ll be done with the physical investigation?”
“Uniforms should get done searching the island today,” Gower said.
“So we can get started tomorrow?”
“For the interior work? You can get started today, but construction workers can only go straight from the ferry into the building.”
“Thanks.”
Gower and Johnson walked down the hallway, past the rubble in the lobby, and out the front doors. “So two of the bodies were Solomon Island employees,” Johnson said. “What do you think? Inside players?”
“Looks that way. And the other three were probably in the robbery crew,” Gower said.
“If the bodies in the van are connected with the kidnap/robbery. Could be an entirely separate beef. How much headway have we made with the mope who was driving the van?”
“Charles ‘Chucky’ Bowmont? He works for Deluxe Paint and Body Shop.”
“That’s one of Ninovich’s shops, isn’t it?” Johnson asked.
“Yeah, it is.”
“But Ninovich’s never been involved in a murder before, not here in the city.”
“So far as we know.”
As soon as the detectives left, O’Brian got out his smartphone. “Mr. Smithson? The two we found upstairs in the rooms?”
“I know who you’re talking about.”
“The cops have them.”
“Not a problem. They won’t be talking to anyone. Anything else?”
“I sent the package.”
“I already knew that.”
“If there’s anything I can do—” Smithson hung up on him.
O’Brian looked out his office window, but he didn’t see the woods or the clouds drifting across the sky. The receptionist and the maintenance tech were dead. Smithson was is a foul mood, and he was going to stay that way until his grandson was safe. He blamed him for the kidnapping, thought his lax management was the root cause. O’Brian turned to the to-do list on his computer. He needed to get the damage repaired and get the casino open ASAP. He needed for Martin to come through with info on Lulu Osmond and JB Turner that would help to find the kidnappers. He had to find some way to add value, to prove his value. He hoped nothing bad had happened to the boy.
Meanwhile, Koenig found Hernandez sitting in the living room of the Ridgewood safehouse looking at something on his phone. Raymond and the others were still asleep. Koenig blew on his coffee. “Walk with me.”
They went out into the backyard. All the houses in sight were quiet, as if everyone were at work or school. A dog in a fenced yard ran up to the nearest corner, but it didn’t bark.
“What do you think of today’s plan?” Koenig asked.
“It’s solid, boss. Assuming the meeting place isn’t a trap.”
“It won’t be. They won’t have enough time to do anything except show up. And they won’t tell the cops. They’ll want to kill us themselves. No, I’m concerned about later.”
“What do you mean?”
“After Raymond and Sanchez get away, they might be followed. Someone might interfere. So I want you at the car drop. They’ll make it that far on their own, or we’re all running for our lives. Take two guys with you. Stay well back, but watch them. Raymond shouldn’t know that you’re there. Don’t get involved unless they get in a situation they can’t handle themselves.”
“But you don’t want Raymond and Sanchez to know?”
“They can’t be lazy, expecting help. They’ve got to believe they’re on their own.”
“Okay, I’ll get it done. You care which guys I take?”
“Take whoever you like. And Hernandez, you’ve proven that your management material, so I’m doubling your take.”
“Doubling? Thanks, boss.”
By the time Koenig’s guy called at 2:00 p.m., Ninovich had checked all his boxes. Two million dollars in old bills sat in two medium duffels in the back of the armored Volvo SUV in Smithson’s driveway. Remote control transmitters were hidden in the duffels, turned off so their signals couldn’t be detected. The GPS dart rifle was in the front seat passenger’s side. Max and Kelly Jo had the GPS tracking information and the transmitter controller.
“The shuttered Bon Jest carpet mill,” the voice said.
For the ride to the carpet mill, Smithson and his son, Tim, sat in the back, Mario—a large man with a scar running across his shaved head and tattoos on his fingers—sat behind the wheel, and Ninovich sat with the dart rifle. He called Max with the location as they drove across town. Koenig had chosen a great place for the meet: isolated, so they couldn’t have extra men in place, but close by a freeway interchange that branched almost immediately three ways—downtown, suburbs, and interstate north—making escape almost certain.
The Volvo SUV was sitting at the south end of the cracked asphalt lot behind the carpet mill at 3:00 p.m. when a black Ford Explorer with tinted windows came into the north end of the lot, swung around to face the exit, and backed up until it was about thirty feet away. Ninovich got out his phone. “Barlow? They’re here. It’s a black Explorer.”
Two men in tactical gear, ski masks pulled over their faces, got out of the Explorer, their assault rifles at the ready. Mario got out of the Volvo.
“Set the money in the middle. One man,” the masked man on the right said.
“Do it,” Smithson said.
Mario pulled the duffels from the back of the Volvo and carried them toward the Explorer. When he got about halfway across the distance, the masked man held up his hand. “That’s far enough.”
Mario set the bags down. “Where’s the kid?”
“Unzip the duffels.”
He unzipped the duffels. They both contained cash, banded with rubber bands.
“Back away.”
Mario looked over his shoulder. Smithson nodded. He backed up to the front bumper of the Volvo, his right hand ready to quick-draw his Glock.
The masked man came up to the duffels, pulled a scanner out of his jacket pocket and scanned the bags for transmitters. No bleeps. He nodded to his partner.
The other man opened the passenger door on the Explorer and brought out Mikey Smithson. He was wearing gym clothes that were too big for him. He was blindfolded with a sleep mask, and his hands were zip-tied together. The liftback of the Explorer opened. As the other man walked Mikey toward the duffel bags, the first man picked up the duffels and hustled them to the back of the Explorer. The second man stood with his hand on Mikey
’s shoulder until his partner closed the liftback, scrambled back inside the Explorer, and tapped the horn twice. Then the second man patted Mikey on the shoulder, spun on his heels, and ran for the SUV, leaving Mikey standing where he was.
Mario ran to Mikey and pulled off the blindfold. “It’s okay, your dad and your grandpa are here.”
Tim was running toward them. “Mikey! Mikey!”
Mikey’s face lit up. He ran for his dad. Tim scooped him up in his arms and rushed back to the Volvo. Mario pulled his gun and started firing on the Explorer. The back glass shattered. Ninovich ran past Tim and Mikey, the GPS dart rifle in his hands. “Keep firing,” he yelled.
The Explorer was slowly gaining speed as it headed for the parking lot exit, Mario’s shots punching into the back. Ninovich got down on one knee and fired the dart rifle. A GPS tracking dart stuck to the Explorer’s liftback.
“You got it,” Mario said.
Ninovich got out his phone. “Barlow? They’re tagged.”
Max and Kelly Jo were sitting in a freshly stolen white Camry on the next street over. They were currently dressed like office professionals, but they’d brought extra clothes so that they could blend in wherever they went tailing the kidnappers. “We’re on.”
Kelly Jo pulled away from the curb. Max looked down at the computer in his lap. The tracking dart was moving on the GPS map. “There it goes. It’s two blocks over. Next right, then the second left. We don’t want them to get too far ahead.”
There was no traffic to speak of in the area around the carpet mill, and Kelly Jo caught all the traffic lights. In a few minutes, they were on the beltway. All the lanes were full, but she was aggressively changing lanes, pushing her way through the gaps. Max looked up from the screen. “You should be able to see them.”
She scanned the traffic, following the highway onto the overpass. “There they are, up on the bridge.” She flipped on her right turn signal.
“What are you doing?”
“They’re going downtown. They’re going to switch vehicles. We need to get close enough to turn on the transmitters.”
“Be ready to jump back out if it’s a fake.”
They watched the Explorer fly along as if it wasn’t going to take the off-ramp. Then at the last minute, it veered hard, scraped the guardrail, and screeched down onto the downtown surface streets. Kelly Jo had finally gotten into the right lane, but there were several cars in front of her, the lead car sticking to the speed limit. She could get into the middle lane, but she didn’t have time or the room to pass the whole line before the exit ramp. The car in front of her tapped its brakes.
“Damn it.”
She swung onto the shoulder and stomped on the gas, flying by the line of cars until she came out ahead of the lead car just before the exit ramp. She bounced down the ramp, tapping her brakes as she went. “Where is it?”
“I don’t know. They’re not showing on the map. Take this first right onto Martin Luther King.”
They drove down a block of office towers with a parking ramp entrance at the street level. “Can you see them?”
“Nothing on the map. And the transmitters won’t turn on.”
“They can’t be that far ahead.”
“Must be interference. Circle the block,” Max said.
She took a right. On the backside of the building, the GPS tracking dart reappeared on the screen. “There’s the dart. Go back around and into the parking ramp.”
She came back around to Martin Luther King Boulevard and drove down into the public parking. Max got out his pistol and chambered a round. “Nice and slow. We want them to think they’re gotten away clean.”
They rolled through the parking ramp, studying the vehicles, looking for the Explorer. Finally, at the bottom of the ramp, they found it, broken back window and bullet holes. The men and the duffel bags were gone. Max pulled the GPS dart off the liftback. “We must have just missed them.”
“What about the transmitters?”
“They didn’t turn on.”
“Guess we need to talk to the attendant,” Kelly Jo said.
They drove back up to the entrance and parked in a handicapped space. A black man wearing a hoodie and jeans sat in a little office with the surveillance cameras. Max tapped on the glass in the door. The man looked up. “Yes?” he said in an African accent.
“We want to look at the video footage from the last thirty minutes,” Max said.
The man shook his head. “I can’t do that.”
Kelly Jo sat on the edge of the desk. Max dug in his pocket and pulled out a thick wad of cash. “Have you seen the new fifty-dollar bill?” He thumbed through the wad until he found one and then held it out in his hand.
“You two are criminals. You’re going to get me in trouble.”
Max turned to Kelly Jo. “I think my feeling are hurt.” He turned back to the attendant. “But I’ll bite. Why do you think we’re criminals?”
“It’s the same everywhere. No police badge. No detective badge. No call from my boss.”
“This is America, my friend. Do you plan on doing this the rest of your life?”
“No.”
“Then you need to build up some savings so that you can make a change.”
“Fifty dollars is not savings. Fifty dollars is me losing this job and getting a bad reference.”
“Fair enough. One-hundred dollars for the look.”
The man looked from Max to Kelly Jo.
Kelly Jo smiled. “We haven’t threatened you or offered to hurt you. We’re trying to give you money. Who’s going to know? And who’s going to tell? Not us.”
The man nodded his head. Max laid a hundred-dollar bill on the desk. “Let’s have a look.”
The attendant opened the surveillance program on the computer and backed up thirty minutes. The Explore drove into the parking deck. “Follow that vehicle.”
The attendant switched from camera to camera following the SUV. It stopped behind a green Subaru wagon. A man got out of the Explorer and loaded the duffels into the Subaru. The Explorer drove away. “Okay,” Max said. “Can we see the plates on the Subaru?”
The attendant switched to the exit camera. The Subaru came up to the exit, both men in the front seats. The license plate numbers were completely visible. Kelly Jo wrote them down.
“That’s it,” the attendant said.
“Can we see when the Subaru got here?”
The attendant shook his head. Max laid another hundred on the desk.
“It was here overnight. I know that.” The attendant went into the previous day’s footage, scanning through the feed at high speed, slowing down for anything that resembled a Subaru wagon. He finally spotted it on the entry camera. Kelly Jo compared the license plate numbers. It was a match. “Great,” Max said. “Follow it down to where it was parked.”
The attendant switched cameras, following the Subaru to its parking spot. A battered Ford Focus pulled up behind it. The driver got out and got into the passenger’s side of the Focus. “We need the license plate on that one,” Max said.
The attendant switched to the exit camera. Kelly Jo copied down the license number.
“Do you want to make one more hundred?” Max asked.
The attendant nodded.
“The footage that shows us down at the Explorer—you know what I’m talking about?”
He nodded.
“Make us disappear.”
“I can’t do that. The police will find that out. I won’t lose my job for you.”
“Had to ask.”
Max and Kelly Jo got back in their Camry, Max driving. As they pulled out of the parking deck, Kelly Jo made a phone call. “Hey, Billy.”
“Hey, Missus.”
“I need names and addresses to go with two license plate numbers.”
“Shoot.”
She read him the plate numbers off the Subaru and the Ford Focus.
“I’ll call you back as soon as I’ve got something. Might take an hour.”
She turned to Max. “We’re all set.”
The Subaru drove into a Save-U-Mart parking lot at the outer edge of the downtown and rolled down the outer row of parking spots until it came to a blue Toyota Prius. Raymond and Sanchez got out of the Subaru, opened the liftbacks of the Subaru and the Prius, and transferred the duffels. The driver of the Prius, blond crewcut and a nose that had been broken more than once, climbed into the driver’s seat of the Subaru.
“Bruce, burn the Subaru,” Raymond said.
“Got you.”
“I mean ashes.”
“I understand.”
Raymond drove the Prius up and down the nearby streets, making sure he and Sanchez weren’t being followed, before he drove out of the city and next door into the suburb of Charming Cove. He drove through the gates of a private golf club and residential community, and wound down the parkway to a group of condos, where he opened a garage and drove in. He and Sanchez each carried a duffel bag into the condo.
Koenig got up from the sofa. He gestured toward the dining room table. They set the duffels down. “Any trouble?” Koenig asked.
“Went off without a hitch.”
Koenig opened the bags and poked through the bundles of cash. “Did you find the GPS transmitters?”
“Took a while. They weren’t turned on yet.”
“When did you find them?”
“Before we switched to the Prius.”
“Are you paying attention? Do you see why we have to be careful? Smithson isn’t going to make any more mistakes.”
Raymond smiled. “We’ve got the money, don’t we?”
“Yeah, but we haven’t escaped yet.”
“So let’s disappear.”
Koenig shook his head. “We’re going to stay right here, wait for the trail to get cold. No one followed you?”
The Casino Switcheroo Page 11
