Broken: A Leopold Blake Thriller

by Gordon Hopkins

  “If you don’t, we’ll kill you.” Irwin cracked his knuckles, loudly, and added, “A lot.”

  DiMauro cringed. “I mean, the claims system isn’t set up to pay into foreign bank accounts.”

  The woman asked, “Is this true?”

  Salazar shook his head. “It’s bullshit. Bremler has contracts with two big oil companies. It’s in the contracts that they can pay electronically to overseas accounts.”

  The woman clucked her tongue. “Irwin, show Gil what happens when he lies to us.”

  Irwin drew back one of his enormous fists. “I’m going to enjoy this.”

  “Remember, we need him conscious.”

  “Just a love tap, then.”

  Irwin’s fist came down and slammed into the side of DiMauro’s face. It felt as if he had been struck in the jaw by lightning. His vision blurred around the edges and, for a moment, he thought he was going to lose consciousness. A loud ringing in his ear slowly subsided. When his vision cleared, he was surprised to find his head still attached to his neck. He tasted the metallic tang of blood and his tongue quickly probed all his teeth. They all seemed to be there, but one may have been loose.

  “You aren’t going to lie to us, again, are you, Gil?” She asked.

  “No.” A bit of blood and saliva dribbled from his lips.

  “Please don’t.” She said.

  “Please do,” Irwin said and smacked his fist into his hand. It sounded like a thunderclap.

  “Boot up the claims system and don’t try anything funny,” Salazar warned. “I paid insurance claims for ten years myself. I know how things work. If you try anything funny, I’ll know it.”

  DiMauro obeyed. “If I’m going to do this, I have to do everything just as if I were paying a real claim. I’ll need things like diagnosis codes and procedure codes. I need the ICD-10 and CPT code books.”

  “Where are the code books?”

  “On a bookshelf on the other side of the office.”

  The woman said, “Go fetch the books, Irwin.”

  “Be right back.”

  As soon as Irwin disappeared into the forest of cubicles, DiMauro tried to reason with his captors. “You’re making a terrible mistake. This is all going to go horribly wrong.”

  “Shut up,” said Salazar.

  “Please listen to me. You don’t understand the danger you’re in.”

  “Your concern is touching, but misplaced,” the woman said. “I think we have everything under control.”

  “Not Biff, you don’t”

  “Biff?”

  “I mean Irwin.”

  “You call him Biff?” The woman giggled at that.

  “You think Biff is just a dumb thug you can control. Well, he’s dumb and he’s a thug, all right, but you can’t control him any more than you can control the weather. Trust me on this, Biff is a semi-truck with a monkey behind the wheel. It only looks like it’s under control. One banana in the road, and it’s all over but the screaming.”

  “I think you underestimate me,” she said.

  Irwin reappeared, two big binders in hand. “Are these the right books?”

  DiMauro swallowed hard, dreading what was about to happen. “They sure are, Biff.”

  Irwin dropped the books on the floor. His face turned purple. He clenched his fists. He screamed at the top of his lungs, “I told you never to call me that again.”

  They were all shocked by this outburst. They were even more shocked by what happened next. Irwin snatched up a chair, held it over his head, and broke into a run straight at DiMauro. “I’ll kill you!”

  “Stop this.” The woman commanded. “Stop this at once, Irwin.”

  He kept coming. Both Conor and Salazar stuck guns into his face. Only then did he stop, shaking, holding the chair over DiMauro. Even with the guns aimed at him, it looked as if Irwin might bring the chair down on DiMauro’s head.

  “We need him alive,” she reminded him.

  Finally, he let out a roar that didn’t sound like it came from a human being and hurled the chair across the office. It crashed into a cubicle wall, which in turn knocked down more cubicle walls like dominoes.

  “Go into the hall and watch the elevators,” she commanded. “Make sure no one comes up.”

  Breathing heavily, he turned on his heel and stomped out.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  The moment the Old Lady stepped through the front doors, she sensed something was wrong. It was the man at the security desk. She had never seen him before. She flashed her security card. “Where’s Lou?”

  “Out with the flu.”

  “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

  “That’s right. First day on the job.”

  First day on the job and the security team leaves him alone on a Sunday morning? Bullshit. It was time to cut and run. The Old Lady put a bony hand to her chest. “Oh, my.”

  “Something wrong, ma’am?”

  “My pills. I forgot my pills.” She turned and started to walk away.

  “Stop.”

  “I’ll never make it through the day without my pills. I’m an old lady, you know.”

  “I said stop.”

  She heard the familiar click of a hammer being drawn back. She turned and saw the gun pointed at her. She put her trembling hands up. “Please don’t hurt me. I’m just an old lady.

  The bogus guard stepped from behind the security desk and took the Old Lady roughly by the arm. “This way, Granny.”

  Granny?

  He dragged her into a stairwell and up four flights. The Old Lady had never been on this floor before, but she knew about it. Years ago, Bremler had built a reinforced storeroom with three-inch metal plates in the walls to protect invaluable and irreplaceable documents from fire and flood damage. Since the advent of digital records, the storeroom fell into disuse. At the end of a long hallway, there were two doorways, marked A4 and B4. A4 was a conference room. B4 was the storeroom. The guard used a security pass to open the door. When he did, the Old Lady heard a gasp. Two young women were in a huddle together on the floor in a corner. She recognized them as the weekend cleaning staff. He reached into the Old Lady’s pocketbook and took her phone. Then he put a hand on her back and shoved her through the door. “Keep your mouth shut and you might just live through this.” He slammed the door.

  It was an unnecessary threat, the Old Lady thought. She could scream her head off and no one would hear anything through those walls.

  She surveyed the room and saw the body of Lou Morgan, the real security guard. His shirt front was stiff with blood where he had been shot. As scared as they were, one of the women had had the presence of mind to cover his face with a handkerchief.

  The Old Lady listened at the door, then gave the door handle a try. It didn’t move. “Do either of you have your security cards?”

  “Yes.” One of the woman held up her card. “But it doesn’t work.”

  The Old Lady took the card and tried for herself. There was a beep and the light blinked, but the door wouldn’t open. There was a control panel at the security desk that controlled all the electronic locks in the building. He must have switched off this door. There was a phone on the wall. She lifted the receiver, knowing she wouldn’t hear anything and she was right. The phones were also controlled by the security desk. Whoever he was, he knew about high-tech security.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Three times, Chavez tried to call the Old Lady. Three times, no answer. He tried calling DiMauro. No answer.

  Leopold, Jerome, and Chavez left the airport and stopped off at a hotel to clean up and stow their luggage. Now they were in a cab on the way to Bremler Mutual.

  “Problem?” Leopold asked.

  “Naw. They know we’re on our way. They’re probably just too busy to answer right now. The Old Lady is probably busy kicking DiMauro’s ass, trying to get him to work.”

  “The Old Lady? You mean his wife?”

  “No, his boss.”

  “What’s the dif
ference?”

  “Funny. She was a cop in New York a million years ago. Damned good one too. She retired a full captain.”

  “Oh, really?” said Leopold, not really interested.

  “Yeah, she was a captain for about ten minutes.

  Now Leopold was interested. “How does someone get to be a captain for ten minutes?”

  “She punched out some foreign diplomat at her swearing in ceremony. Anyway, now she runs the fraud unit for Bremler Mutual. She’s a bear to work for, but she really knows her stuff. Plus, she knows how to make DiMauro work, which is akin to making the mountain come to Mohammed.”

  The cab pulled up in front of the Bremler Building and let the three men out. They entered the lobby and Jerome, seeing the guard at the front desk, wondered aloud, “Is my gun going to be a problem?”

  “You have a concealed carry permit, right?” Chavez asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then there shouldn’t be problem. Still, I wouldn’t draw attention to it.”

  The guard asked, “Can I help you gentlemen?”

  Chavez showed his ID. “Is Gil DiMauro in yet? We have a meeting this morning.”

  “Sure, he’s in. Floor twenty-nine.” The guard reached under his desk and pulled out three white cards and passed them out. “You’ll need these guest passes. Please display them at all times and return them to the front desk before you leave. Please use elevator two. We only keep one elevator active on the weekends.”

  Chavez attached his pass to his lapel. “Thanks.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  The claims payment system was basically a fill-in-the-blank form, designed so that a claims processor could pay or deny claims quickly. The screen looked awfully busy to Conor, but Salazar seemed to understand it. In the field designated “BILLED AMOUNT,” DiMauro typed $200,000.

  “Hey. What do you think you’re doing?” Conor demanded. “We want ten million.”

  DiMauro said, “I can’t pay ten million. My pay authority only goes up to two hundred thousand.”

  “Is this true?” Nasrin asked Salazar. “Is that the most he can pay?”

  Salazar confirmed. “Only the CEO would be able to authorize a ten-million-dollar payment.”

  “Is there a way around that?”

  “Of course there is. He can’t pay more than two hundred thousand per claim. If we want ten million, he just has to pay fifty claims.”

  “Fifty?” said Conor. “That’ll take forever.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Nasrin said, unconcerned. “We can’t leave before five o’clock anyway.”

  DiMauro did some calculation in his head. Five o’clock San Francisco time would be nine in the morning in Singapore, when the banks opened for business. Before five, it would still be possible to cancel the payments he made. After five, the money would be irretrievable.

  A cell phone rang. It belonged to Nasrin. She answered, and DiMauro listened to her side of the conversation. “What is it, Nick?… How many?… No, you did the right thing. … Get the women and bring them up here … We may need hostages.” She hung up.

  Irwin came in with a look of panic on his face. “Hey. Someone’s coming up in the elevator.”

  “I know. Three FBI men.” Nasrin picked up one of the gym bags and tossed it to Irwin. “Deal with them.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  The digital readout showed floor 18 when the lights went out and the elevator shuddered to a halt. Jerome pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket and located the emergency phone on the wall. Leopold picked up the receiver and pushed the call button.

  “Hello?” There was no answer. No sound at all. He pushed the button again. “Hello … hello.”

  “This isn’t a power failure.” Jerome said. “We have to get out of here now.” He aimed the flashlight at the ceiling. Above them was a light fixture, now dark.

  “There’ll be a service hatch hidden over the lights.” Chavez said.

  “That doesn’t sound like a good idea.” said Leopold. “What are you going to do, shimmy up a grease covered cable? We should try to get the doors open.”

  Chavez considered this option but quickly discarded it. They were almost certainly between floors. The two halves of the elevator doors sat flush against each other. The mirrored surface was too slick to grip, and they had nothing to pry the doors apart with. “Forget it. We’ll never get those doors open.” He took the flashlight from Jerome. “Gimme a boost, big guy.”

  “Whatever we’re going to do, we need to do it quickly.” Jerome laced his fingers together and Chavez stepped into his hands. Jerome lifted the FBI Agent easily.

  Chavez began dismantling the light fixture. As he pulled out fluorescent tubes and passed them down to Leopold, he complained. “They always make this look so easy in the movies. It’s always just a trap door overhead. In reality, they make these hatches hard to get to so people don’t panic and try to climb out every time an elevator stops unexpectedly.”

  “Will you hurry up, please?” said Jerome.

  “Not getting tired, are you?” Chavez found a latch and opened the panel. “Okay, I’m through.” He pulled himself up. Overhead, he saw a light far above him. One of the elevator doors was open. His eyes quickly adjusted and he saw a silhouette in the doorway. The he saw a muzzle flash and heard the crack of three gunshots in rapid succession. He felt a burning pain as a bullet pierced his wrist. He lost his grip and the metal trap door came down on his head, knocking him senseless.

  Jerome caught him as he fell back into the elevator.

  There were more shots. Bullets left holes in the ceiling and buried themselves in the carpeted floor. The three men flattened themselves against the walls.

  There was a lull in the shooting. Chavez shook his head, trying to clear the fog.

  Jerome stepped into the middle of the elevator, raised one size-sixteen shoe and slammed his foot into the right side of the door. He kicked the door a second, a third, and then a fourth time. There was now a dent and the two sides of the door were no longer flush. There was a small edge sticking out, less than an inch, but it was enough. Jerome braced his back against the wall and wedged his foot against the narrow edge. With a grunt, he pushed.

  Several seconds had gone by without gunfire. Something was about to happen.

  With a screech of scraping metal, the elevator door moved just a little. Jerome pushed harder. There was a metallic groan and the doors opened more. Not all the way, but enough to let a man through. They were between the eighteenth and nineteenth floors. Leopold went first, slipping through the gap and jumping down to the eighteenth floor. Chavez was still bleeding and getting woozy. He was halfway out when they all heard a thump overhead. Some object had landed on the elevator’s roof.

  “Move!” Jerome shouted, shoving Chavez roughly and hurling himself through just as the grenade exploded.

  A hot blast knocked all three men to the floor.

  Chavez clutched his bleeding arm to his chest.

  Jerome took off his necktie and tied it around the wound. “It doesn’t look too bad, but you need to get it seen to right away.”

  Chavez pulled his gun from holster and handed it to Leopold. “My shooting arm’s out of action. You might as well take this.”

  Leopold assessed the situation. They were in a long hallway lined with doors. Six of them were for the elevators, one now out of action and still smoldering. Two doors were for stairwells. The rest were for various offices. He tried to open a stairwell door. It didn’t budge. There was a card reader, just like every other door in this building. Knowing it was pointless, he tried the card the bogus security guard had given him anyway. A beep and a flashing green light later, the door still didn’t open. He tried the elevator button. Nothing. The elevators were turned off. He tried his phone. “I’m not getting any reception.” Maybe it was damaged when he fell.

  Jerome tried his phone. “No signal.”

  Chavez tried his phone. “Me too. None of our phones are working. How is that
possible?”

  Leopold pointed to a sign on door. “That’s why.” The sign read Martin Park, DDS. “And that.” Another door on the other side of the hall had a sign, Western Dynamic Radiology. “There’s an X-ray machine in one and an MRI machine in the other. Both offices, if not the entire floor, will be heavily shielded, and we’re stuck between the two.”

  “Great. Someone’s hijacked this building, and we’re stuck in a dead zone.” Chavez groaned as he tried to stand up.

  “Try not to move.” Jerome said. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

  “I’m fine.” As he stood, Chavez felt dizzy. He lowered himself back to the floor. “I’m sitting down because I want to. Not because you told me to.” Then saw something that made him say, “Oh, no.”

  “What’s wrong?” Leopold asked.

  “That.” Chavez pointed to a vacuum cleaner standing at one end of the hall, attached to the wall with an orange extension cord. Next to it was a cart with cleaning supplies. “It must be the weekend cleaning staff. That means hostages, assuming they’re still alive. I assume the guy I saw isn’t the only one. They know where we are. Why haven’t they come after us?”

  “Caution.” said Jerome. “They can’t approach us by elevator without alerting us. There are only two stairwells and we can cover both of them. They must know if they try to take us, some of them will get killed. They also know we can’t get off this floor. They may just leave us trapped here until they finish whatever it is they’re doing. I think our best course of action is to make a stand here and wait them out. Sooner or later, the police will come. We just need to stay alive until they do.”

  “We can’t wait.” Leopold shook his head. “We have to get off this floor now so we can contact the authorities. We only have until five to stop them.”

  “What happens at five?”

  “The banks in Singapore open, and any money sent there will be gone. The people behind this are the same people who did the original insurance fraud. They want money and they know how insurance companies work. That has to be what they’re doing here, and every dime will end up in the hands of terrorists.”