Ghostman

by Roger Hobbs

  This was a getaway pack.

  A getaway pack is a criminal’s first precaution. I have more than a few myself hidden around the world. Just in case everything goes completely to hell, the getaway pack is there as a backup. You secure yourself a hiding place and stock it with the bare essentials. That way, when the shit hits the fan you don’t have to scramble for anything. The best ones are minimal. The closest one I had was on the roof of a building on the west side of Manhattan, hanging from a wire on the inside of an old chimney that had been bricked up for decades. It had ten thousand dollars, a few credit cards, a clean passport and a Beretta. The pack here contained a fifth of the money and twice the firepower, plus some drug I couldn’t identify. Nobody ever packs a change of clothes.

  I laid the machine gun out on the floor. It was an old model Micro-Uzi, probably left over from before one of the assault-weapons bans. The ammunition was some Russian import. Nine-millimeter parabellum. I put the box of it on top of the gun. The cash at the bottom of the sack was faded and crisp from the heat. I flipped through the strap. The bills all were dated a few years ago. I took one out and felt the paper. Ones that look that old are more likely to be counterfeit. No watermark. No color printing. No security strip. That’s why the Treasury changes the design so often. The counterfeiters try to keep up, but it takes them a few years. By that time, the style has changed again. For these bills, the difference would be in the watermarked cotton paper. Real money is printed on a unique blend of cotton and polyester fabric from a particular factory in western Massachusetts. The fabric gives money its distinctive soft, slightly starchy feeling, because it isn’t technically paper. Fakes don’t feel the same. I rubbed the bill a few times and compared it to one from my wallet. I’m no expert, but it felt like cash to me, no matter how suspicious it looked.

  I pulled one out, picked up the lighter and fired one up. The edge caught and turned black, burning away in black circles that gave off an orange flame. Real money burns with an orange flame, because that’s just how it burns. Counterfeits are printed on regular paper, which burns bright red. I shook the bill out and placed the rest of the stack next to the ammunition. Real money.

  I took the brochures out next. The top one was a color brochure from a large, nationwide real estate brokerage; it had been folded up so many times that just opening it caused it to fall apart. The other one held a few pictures of old Victorian-style houses, but nothing specific. Inside was a cash receipt from an off-brand gas station down in Ventnor for thirty dollars’ worth of regular unleaded, but the date was worn off. I looked at both again for a second, then put them back in the bag. Nothing useful.

  I opened the bag of pills and sniffed at the mouth of the bag a few times. They were a pressed white powder, which means they were made in a factory but doesn’t tell you much. A lot of drugs come out of factories, even illegal ones. There are whole industrial complexes in South America that press fake Oxycontin. These pills weren’t Oxy, though. They smelled slightly clinical, like a polished hospital floor. I thought that they could have been some form of speed, like methamphetamine, but they were equally likely to be aspirin. For all I knew, one of these guys got really severe migraines.

  Finally I took out the cell phone. It had a design that hadn’t been popular in a few years. I pressed the green button, and I guess it had been charged because the screen flashed on right away and went into start-up. When the logo went away and the home screen popped up, I spent a minute trying to find any stored contacts. The list was completely empty. Then I looked for the list of recent activity. There had been a series of missed calls from a blocked number starting just this morning, but not a single voice mail. The one outgoing call was over a week old. New York area code.

  I put all the gear back in the rucksack, took out the phone Alexander had given me, powered it up and dialed Marcus’s number.

  It picked up within one ring. “The Five Star Diner.”

  “I need to talk to him.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Tell him to pick up the phone or I’m going to the casino.”

  “One minute.”

  I closed the door to the storage unit behind me. Unless someone came to pick up the rucksack, it would remain there until the lease wore out. Probably another three months. I wondered what might happen then. Police discover weapons caches all the time, but rarely by accident. There would be yellow police tape encircling the unit and guys in black uniforms scratching their heads. I considered taking the cash, but it wasn’t worth it. That getaway pack belonged to someone. Moreno or Ribbons, maybe. Marcus, even, considering he was the one who had probably paid for that stuff in the first place. There was still a chance that Ribbons might actually show up, though that possibility was growing smaller and smaller by the moment. If he did, I’d prefer it if he found the phone.

  Marcus came on the phone a second later. He said, “What is it?”

  “I arrived in Atlantic City all right, but Ribbons never made it to the storage unit. Nobody’s been to this place in days. The lock was covered in dust.”

  “He’s vanishing. He probably didn’t go to the rendezvous because he knew that would be the first place I’d look.”

  “Yeah, I get that,” I said. “But something’s strange. There’s only one getaway pack.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Two guys. They weren’t going to share a getaway pack. Nobody does that.”

  “So where’s the other one?”

  “I was going to ask you,” I said.

  “How should I know?” Marcus said. “Nobody tells anyone what’s in their getaway packs, least of all their jugmarker. You know that better than anyone.”

  “Then I’m going at this thing backwards. You told me how the getaway was supposed to end, but not how it was supposed to begin. If things had gone as planned, you said, this storage unit was where they were going to hide out until everything quieted down. You’ve got to tell me what happened before that. Ribbons would’ve ditched his gun and his clothes, right? And what about the getaway car? Certainly Ribbons must have ditched that too. He had to. Probably within a few blocks, even. The news gave out a description of the car, but they haven’t said that anyone’s found it yet.”

  “They were supposed to ditch the car and burn it, yeah. It should’ve been a charred hunk of metal by now.”

  “So then what? Were they on their own to steal another one off the street, with maybe a whole fleet of black-and-whites chasing them? You’ve got to tell me more about the getaway.”

  “That’s the only part of the job I didn’t plan personally. I left Moreno in charge. He was the wheelman.”

  “Whatever you know, I should know.”

  “It was a two-car deal. Moreno was supposed to swap the first car for another car they’d already stolen and stashed somewhere. They were going to burn the first, then drive the second out to the storage unit where you’re standing right now. I left it up to them to work out the details.”

  “Did he tell you where they were going to ditch the switch car?”

  “They had some big empty building next to a derelict airfield about ten blocks from the casino. The idea was that inside an abandoned building, the switch car could burn for hours before the police would find it.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I can work with that.”

  I hung up and removed the battery with my free hand. I crushed the body of the phone under my foot and kicked it away. I went out through the gate, got back in my car, started the engine and drove. The afternoon humidity was beginning to let up, and the light glinted off the marsh and caught in the windshields of oncoming cars. By the time I was back on the highway, I was already trying to put together my search strategy. I was already lost in thought. I wanted to go through Ribbons’s getaway, move by move. If I could re-create his escape, there was still a chance I could find him alive.

  I checked my watch.

  Thirty-six hours to go.

  12

  The Atlantic Regency Hotel Casi
no was the first thing I recognized on the skyline. It seemed to loom over me on the highway like some giant glass obelisk, impossible for anyone to miss. It was twenty stories and a radio tower higher than the next tallest hotel, which made it one of the biggest resort casinos in the country. A triumph of modern engineering, I thought. The tower was shaped like a white knight on a chessboard. The whole billion-dollar complex had been nothing but a block of waterfront tourist traps just two years ago, and now there it was. They’d worked on it day and night to put it up so fast. The sign was visible from miles away.

  I’ve always been less comfortable with people than with architecture. People can be boring. A well-designed building knows how to keep its secrets. Think the walls of Troy. No human army could break through, but a simple trick, like a horse full of hidden soldiers, could render all that security meaningless.

  When I got close, I could feel the ocean on my skin. I drove around behind the Boardwalk near the casino’s back and side entrances and circled around looking for a parking space. It wasn’t long before I passed the spot where the job went down. The whole area was cordoned off by police tape, and every block for miles around it was packed with cars. The news crews looked like they’d set up camp for good. Vans from every affiliate within a hundred miles were parked with camp chairs set up next to them like they were tailgating. There were cameramen in sunglasses sipping sodas in the shade and a sea of other people. The rush I’d seen earlier on the news had died down a bit because of the afternoon heat, but there was still a throng of rubberneckers standing near the taped-off area. A uniformed police officer was telling them to move along. The R in Regency had been blown out over the entrance and there was a spider-bite line of bullet holes leading up to it. The holes would probably be gone by morning, as soon as the police gave the casino the go-ahead. But for now, the place still looked like a battleground even though all the bodies were gone.

  I found a parking space a couple of blocks away and proceeded back on foot. If I could just see the place where Ribbons and Moreno had been working, I knew that I could put together their getaway in my mind. I could go through the same steps and maybe even see what they’d seen. Think what they’d thought. I walked past the TV reporters and ducked under the yellow police tape. The cop looked at me, but I reached into my breast pocket and took out my wallet. I flashed it at him like I couldn’t give a damn. It didn’t look anything like a badge, but the better part of my job is confidence. If you behave like you belong somewhere, people find a way to believe it.

  He waved me through without a second glance.

  The casino doors under the Regency sign were locked now and covered in clear plastic sheets. Everything felt strangely empty. At the time of the crime the whole area would have been relatively quiet, but not like this. All the cars had been removed from the parking lot and the bloody spots had been washed away with a pressure hose. The place was like a ghost town. The garage was one of those open-air concrete places where you could drive up ten stories and park on the roof if you wanted. The ticket booth had been smashed out and there was a whole different layer of caution tape around it. I could see the whole job go down, starting with the muzzle flashes of Ribbons’s assault rifle. It played out nothing like the simple plan Marcus had described. This was a battle, not a heist.

  Moreno had stayed behind with the hunting rifle. I glanced up at the place where he’d hidden. Six in the morning meant minimal traffic, if any. Ribbons was there for pure assault. Moreno had tried to kill all the guards silently, but couldn’t. There were holes in the pavement from all the bullets. One of the guards must still have been alive when Ribbons started firing. There was no other reason to let off so many shots. I could see the spot where Ribbons had killed the very last guy. Point-blank, full-auto. The blood was all cleaned up but the bullets had blown away part of the blacktop in a tight little grouping. This was an execution.

  I climbed over the concrete barrier into the parking garage. I could tell immediately where they’d parked the getaway car. There were bullet holes in the pillars all around, and marks on the pavement from the burned rubber. The broken glass and auto parts were all gone, but the tire marks and bullet holes were still there. I stood where the getaway car must’ve been and examined one of the holes in the pillar. It was at least .30 caliber. Someone had been waiting for Ribbons and Moreno. Someone had been sitting at the other end of the parking garage and watching them through the scope of a pretty serious rifle. The bullet had gone at least two inches into the concrete.

  The sniper.

  Marcus hadn’t mentioned a sniper, but the news on the plane had called him “the third man.” He had fired thirty yards from one end of the lot to the other. With a rifle like that, it would have been like shooting fish in a barrel. I could understand how he’d been able to kill Moreno with one shot. At that distance, a trained sniper could have killed them both blindfolded. All the extra shots suggested that my shooter was something of an amateur. He’d compensated for his lack of skill with a large number of bullets.

  What I couldn’t understand was the timing.

  The third man had fired on Ribbons and Moreno only after they were done. A normal person would’ve tried to stop the robbery in progress instead of waiting until it was almost over. Hell, even a criminal with a grudge would’ve tried to stop the heist before then, since nothing’s more dangerous to a criminal’s life and livelihood than a high body count. I considered for a moment that maybe the third shooter needed a few moments to get his rifle ready. Maybe he didn’t have a good shot until the shit had hit the fan. Maybe he didn’t exactly know what was going to happen. Maybe the rifle was unloaded or in the trunk when Moreno fired the first shot. But none of those explanations felt right.

  The shooter must have known what was going to happen. What were the odds that he’d just been in the right place at the right time with the right weapon? The sniper must’ve known about Marcus’s plan in advance. How the hell could something like that happen? Marcus’s plans had only ever got out once before, and that time it was my fault.

  Yes, this was certainly premeditated. Efficient. Maybe even personal. Someone knew the heist was going down ahead of time, set up shop with an angle already in mind and waited to take the first shot until exactly the right moment. What was the goal? I didn’t know, but I could guess. The third shooter wanted the money Moreno and Ribbons had just taken. It was a double heist. Ribbons and Moreno did all the dirty work, and the third shooter would drive away with all the payoff.

  I wondered if he’d bothered to give chase. Probably not. Too risky. Once Ribbons made it out of the parking garage, the third shooter lost his window of opportunity. Chasing him down on the roads wasn’t part of the plan. If it took too long, or ended the wrong way, both of them could get caught. The cops may have been a couple of blocks away, sure, but after a firefight like this, every squad car for miles would be going Code 3. Giving chase would also require the third shooter to abandon his own getaway route. Even the best drivers in the world wouldn’t take that risk.

  I looked up at the surveillance cameras. They were several generations out of date. I’d seen pictures from cameras of that era. The license plates would have looked like a Rorschach blot. When I checked on the plane, there was nothing on the news about the cops catching the guy. Maybe his getaway car was still missing too. If that was so, he must have planned his getaway just as well as Ribbons and Moreno had. Maybe even better. After all, the sniper didn’t have his face all over the news.

  I closed my eyes and put myself inside his head. I became him for a moment and lived through his senses. I felt the rush and the weight of the rifle against my shoulder. I imagined trying to hold my racing breath as I centered the crosshairs on the back of Moreno’s head. I imagined counting my heartbeats and correcting for the ocean wind. I imagined waiting for exactly the right moment, for Ribbons to cross the concrete barrier back into the parking garage. I imagined squeezing the trigger, feeling the force of the recoil absorbing into
my shoulder and seeing the puff of pink mist as Moreno’s body crumpled on the steering wheel. I imagined what I must’ve been thinking at that exact moment.

  There was only one thing on my mind.

  Kill.

  I stood there a moment longer, then opened my eyes and blinked. When I came out of it, I headed toward the Boardwalk, slipping quickly under the yellow tape, past the cop, into the pedestrian traffic. A man in torn denim shorts blew past me on a rickshaw. For ten bucks, he was a slow, expensive taxi. Not for me. I weaved through the crowd, blending into the sea of bright summer colors. I became invisible. I caught my first sight of the ocean. It churned like a giant black oil slick up against the sand dunes.

  When I got back to my rental, I switched on the GPS. It found my current location. I took a long look at the map and moved it around using the arrow buttons. The area looked like a getaway nightmare. One side of the Regency faced the ocean, two others faced more casinos and the fourth emptied to a major arterial road that in turn went to a patrolled highway with a toll booth every few miles.

  I memorized the map as I scrolled. I’m no wheelman. I can drive well, if it really comes down to it, but actually planning a getaway route was never among my talents. There was a whole lot of information that the wheelman planning the heist would’ve known but I didn’t have time to figure out. I kept thinking about the clue Marcus had given me. A derelict airport. I’d flown into Atlantic City International, nearly twenty miles away through the salt marshes. There were a few unused airstrips out there, sure, but they were about a hundred times farther away than any reasonable wheelman could accept, especially in the first getaway car. If this was a two-car getaway, I was looking for something within ten blocks, like Marcus said. I scrolled for a few more seconds, putting all my attention into the map.