Kaplan looked up for the first time. "How could that happen? Local law enforcement is briefed, right? Didn’t he identify himself as a cop? He should have known about the witness, right?"
"She," Moss said. "In this particular instance, she would have been briefed but she had just returned from two weeks leave. First day back on the job. She had stopped at the diner for breakfast before going into the station. That's where she ran into the witness. Eyewitness statements along with the WitSec inspector’s testimony claim she never identified herself as a police officer before she was shot. The politics ran all the way to the governor, the director of the Marshals Service, and the Department of Justice. Ultimately the deputy was removed from WitSec and reassigned to another field office."
"And the undercover cop? What happened to her?"
"She didn't make it. Died enroute to the hospital."
Kaplan studied the big man. His next question was sure to get a reaction, but he never got the chance to ask.
Dick walked into the room while Susan stood in the doorway. It seemed an odd match to him. Dick was six-five and Susan was barely five feet. Dick was all business and Susan was not.
"We got company," Dick said. "Four cars. Eight men, maybe more. They've driven by at least a half a dozen times over the past two hours. Our surveillance cameras spotted a couple of men walking the perimeter. Could have been the same man twice, hard to tell in the shadows."
"Gregg," Susan said. "This is new territory for us. This safe house has never been compromised. We have contingencies in place, of course, but have never had to use them. Somebody has gone to a lot of trouble to get to your man."
"Martin Scalini," Moss interjected.
Kaplan looked back at Moss. "Tony said it was Scalini, but this doesn’t seem like wise guy M.O."
Moss hesitated, and then finally said, "Scalini is powerful and highly respected in the Mafioso. Tony is the one man who can single-handedly bring down Scalini's entire operation along with all the drug cartels he does business with. And the human traffickers. And the gun traffickers. The list goes on and on. Scalini's top two button men are Angelo DeLuca and Bruno Ratti, aka Bruno the Rat. We don't know much about Ratti except that he disappears for a few years at a time and then reappears. Rumor is he spends his time in the Caribbean somewhere. DeLuca is a different story. Angelo DeLuca's got a rap sheet as long as your arm. He's extremely loyal to Martin Scalini. Been with him since he was a teenager. He has a reputation of violence. There is only one person I can think of who is more ruthless and sadistic than DeLuca. And that's Martin Scalini.
"If Scalini takes Tony alive, he will take him to his room of death—we don't know exactly where his torture chamber is, only that it exists. There, Scalini tortures his victims. Some are rumored dissolved alive in an acid bath. Some are dismembered. First he starts with the fingers and toes. He breaks them all, one at a time. Slowly. Then, for violating the code of silence, Scalini cuts out the tongue as a symbolic gesture."
"Okay. Enough for me." Susan's face was ashen. "I'm leaving. I don't need to hear this." She turned and left.
"Is this really necessary?" Kaplan watched Susan leave the room. "I'm more than a little familiar with torture."
"Not like this. You know torture when information extraction was the objective." Moss pointed his finger at the man sitting inside the quiet room. "This isn’t water boarding, this is different. When a member of the family flips and cooperates with law enforcement, a violent message must be sent. Whether it is sadistic torture or being buried alive, the message rings loud and clear throughout the criminal underworld—you don't snitch on the Scalini family. If you do, he will make you beg for death."
34
The crow's nest was a ten-foot by five-foot rectangular parapet on the roof of the B & B. With its rhythmic breaks in the wall to create a protective pattern of embattlements, the crenellated parapet offered an unobstructed 360º view of the B & B's property. To Kaplan, it looked like a tower on a fortified medieval castle with its notched walls to ward off attackers. Only manned when the safe house was active, it provided high ground so the two armed guards had an advantage against unwelcome intruders.
Kaplan opened the metal hatch and climbed onto the crow's nest. Behind the reinforced brick wall, he joined the two men guarding the fortress. According to Dick, both men were former Marines. One was an easy ten years older than the other. Both were dressed in full black tactical uniforms with smudged faces. They had rifles with infrared scopes, night vision goggles, as well as standard binoculars.
"Okay, give me a SitRep," Kaplan said in a hushed voice.
The elder of the two leaned over and gave Kaplan the situation report. "Two cars and two SUVs. Looks like a light colored Buick, maybe a LaCrosse—"
"That's the car with the two goons from Francesco's," said Kaplan.
"It drives by about every fifteen minutes. There is also a Lincoln Town Car and both SUVs appear to be Suburbans. With the exception of the Buick, all the vehicles are dark colored with black out windows. Infrared indicates two men in each vehicle." The guard pointed to the end of the block. "One Suburban parked at the end of the street hasn't moved in forty-five minutes. About every eighteen to twenty minutes, someone from the Suburban gets out and walks down the street and back."
"What about the others?" Kaplan asked.
The man turned and pointed through a break in the trees behind the safe house. "The other Suburban is parked one street back. You can just make out the front grill through there."
"And the Town Car?"
"Wild card. We have no idea. Last time we saw it was over an hour ago. It drove down the street and hasn't been seen since."
"Any chance it's not part of this group?" Kaplan asked.
"No chance, sir. Before its last pass it stopped there." He turned and pointed to the first Suburban at the end of the street. "One man from each vehicle got out and talked for two and a half minutes, both looking in this direction the entire time, then they got back in their vehicles and the Town Car drove down the street and disappeared."
"You think they know you guys are up here?"
"It's possible, but not likely. Heavy cloud cover, no moon, no streetlights on this end of the block. It's pretty dark and we're well hidden behind this wall. Tonight they'd need night vision goggles to know we're here."
"Great." Kaplan opened the metal door and descended three steps, stopped and turned to the guard. "If anything changes—"
"Yes, sir. You'll be the first to know."
Thirty seconds later Kaplan was standing in front of the quiet room. Senior Inspector Moss was back in the room with Tony. Kaplan knocked on the glass and motioned to Moss. The deputy came outside the room. "How long before you can get Marshals protection here to transport Tony?"
Moss looked at his watch. "Three hours. Maybe a little less if traffic isn't bad." He looked up at Kaplan. "Change your mind?"
"Yeah, but three hours is too long. We need to get him out of here ASAP." Kaplan turned and looked at Tony. The old man, with a Band-Aid on his neck, was sitting at the table inside the room glaring at him. "This turned into more than I bargained for."
"What do you want to do?" Moss asked.
Kaplan turned back to the deputy. "All that stuff you said earlier about what Scalini will do to Tony…how sure are you that he'll keep him alive long enough to torture him?"
"It's Scalini’s style. Everyone who double-crosses him is tortured first and then killed. Almost without exception. And he's going to want to talk to Tony first. Find out what all he'd told the feds."
"And you know how to find Scalini?"
"More or less," Moss said. "OCRS has plenty of intel on almost all of Scalini's holdings. Putting the finger on him has been the hard part."
"OCRS?"
"The Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the U. S. Marshals Service."
"How would you like to be known as the man who single-handedly brought down Scalini?" Kaplan asked.
"I
n a perfect world, what deputy wouldn't?" Moss said. "But right now I'm tasked with bringing in my assigned witness alive." Moss paused and gave Kaplan a perplexed look. "Why? What'd you have in mind?"
"I have a plan," Kaplan said, as he turned and looked at Tony through the window. "It'll give you the chance to kill two birds with one stone. But we'll need Tony's help to pull it off."
Moss followed suit and also looked through the glass. "I'll bet I'm not going to like it."
"No, Inspector Moss, you're going to hate it."
* * *
Angelo DeLuca parked his car around the corner from the safe house giving him a limited view of the front gate. Dark clouds hung in the sky and with no streetlights it was difficult to see anything in detail, but he could still make out the metal gate sandwiched between the two brick abutments of the perimeter wall.
"Boss," Bruno said. He was holding binoculars to his eyes. "You're not going to believe this."
"What is it?"
Bruno passed the binoculars to DeLuca. "Take a look for yourself."
DeLuca twisted the focus until the safe house came into view. Bruno was right; he didn't believe what he saw. The gate had opened a few feet and stopped. The silhouette of a man walked from the opening with hands on top of his head to the middle of the street and stopped. DeLuca zoomed in on the man's face. "Holy shit, it's Tony Q."
The radio crackled and a voice said, "Boss, are you seeing this?"
DeLuca replied, "I'm watching."
The voice said, "Is that Tony Q?"
"Sure looks like him."
The voice asked, "What do you want us to do, Boss?"
"Nothing," Deluca said. "It has to be a trick."
Bruno interrupted, "There's someone else. He's standing at the gate. He's motioning for us to come to him."
"What do you think, Bruno? Think it's a trap?"
"It's that asshole Tony Q. I can smell that two-bit snitch from here."
"It could be a setup," said DeLuca. "Using Tony Q for bait."
"If it is, we whack 'em." Bruno grinned.
DeLuca stared at Bruno. "The boss said alive, you moron."
"Geez, Angelo. Lighten up, I was just kidding. Think logically about this for a second. Of course it's not a setup. Whoever is inside doesn't want to start an all out war in the middle of this neighborhood. It's too risky. The safe house cover would be blown and that's the last thing they want. Besides I'll keep my gun trained on the man at the gate."
DeLuca pulled the car from the curb and crept forward. He rounded the corner and let the Buick roll forward at idle speed until it was only inches away from Tony. The old man hadn't moved. "Tony Q, is that you?"
"Of course, it's me, you dumbass," the old man replied.
Bruno opened his door and got out, keeping his gun trained toward the man at the gate. The man stepped from the shadows. The glow from the headlights outlined the man's face. DeLuca recognized him as the man who escaped with Tony in Nashville.
"I have a message for your boss," the man said.
"Yeah? What kind of message?" DeLuca said.
"Tell Scalini this favor is on me. Also tell him I plan to collect real soon."
"You think you're some kind of tough guy, huh? Why don't I have Bruno do a number on you right now?" He looked at Bruno and laughed.
"I don't think you'll do that because there is only one scenario where you end up alive and that's you taking Tony back to Scalini unharmed. Go back empty handed, Scalini kills you." Kaplan motioned to the crow's nest. "Make a move on me, we kill you. Your call."
"The boss won't deal with a weasel like you. You show up, he'll kill you on the spot."
"My problem, not yours. All you have to do is leave with Tony and relay the message to your boss."
"Come on, Angelo," Bruno said to DeLuca. "We got Tony Q. Let's get out of here."
DeLuca paused. "Have it your way, tough guy. I'll tell him. But if you do something stupid, like come after Scalini, you better come heavy." Deluca motioned to Bruno. "Put the old man in the back…and make sure he's not wearing a wire."
* * *
Kaplan watched the Buick drive off with Moss's witness in the back seat. Neither Tony nor the inspector was initially onboard with Kaplan's plan. It took a lot of convincing to bring Moss around. The idea of handing over his witness to the very man who wanted to kill him went against everything the Marshals Service stood for…until he understood the plan. Then Kaplan, with Moss's help, finally convinced Tony that his cooperation would be in his best interest.
The Suburban at the end of the street turned around and both vehicles disappeared from sight. One street over he heard another vehicle start and accelerate away.
Across the street a figure emerged from the shadows. He was dressed in full black and walked up to him.
"GPS device in place?" Kaplan asked.
"Yes sir," the man said. "Virtually undetectable and you can track it with your phone."
35
Twelve Hours Later
Newark Shipping Terminals
Newark, New Jersey
* * *
Kaplan followed Angelo DeLuca to a worn-down warehouse inside the Newark shipping terminal complex. The old Quonset hut style warehouse was a long, semi-circular cross-sectioned structure with windows near the apex lending the appearance of a possible upper level on the inside. Rust had metastasized on the exterior walls through years of neglect and had mottled the once painted surface.
There was a barrage of background noise at the shipping terminal, from jet engines at the adjacent Newark International Airport to the incessant banging and clanging of the never ending loading and unloading of containers from the twenty-four hour stream of cargo ships using the port's facilities.
The weather had cleared on the drive from Virginia to Newark and the northern sky was cloudless. As darkness descended, the glow from the surrounding mass of bright urban lights gave the shipping terminal a stereotypical appearance. Trucks carried cargo into the port where intermodal transfer cranes loaded the containers from truck to ship. There was a steady flow of vehicles entering and leaving the shipping terminal complex.
From his vantage point, Kaplan saw the lights on Liberty Island illuminating the Statue of Liberty. Behind it, Ellis Island, Governors Island, and the glow of Battery Park and Lower Manhattan. Farther across the Hudson River, the western shore of Brooklyn seemed closer than it actually was as ships moved in and out of Bush Terminal.
Earlier, Kaplan had called in the location to his handler who verified the warehouse belonged to a shell corporation he painstakingly traced back to a holding company owned by one of Martin Scalini's international investors.
While Moss updated Hepler, Kaplan scouted the perimeter and made his initial assessment of the warehouse before returning to the Mercedes.
The warehouse was a two-story building with upstairs and downstairs rear fire escapes, each door directly above or below the other. All other exits—two truck sized loading and unloading doors and one entrance door—faced the main entrance road to the shipping terminal.
When he and Moss first arrived in Newark, the highways were congested with traffic as if it were rush hour. Thousands of taxis and commuters clogged the roadways. Impatient motorists honked their horns and gave hand gestures expressing their displeasure. The app Kaplan installed on Moss's smart phone displayed the navigation track DeLuca took to the warehouse. It made it unnecessary for Kaplan to keep visual contact with the silver Buick LaCrosse through the maze of surface streets leading to the shipping terminal.
As Kaplan pulled the Mercedes into the complex, Moss spotted DeLuca's vehicle pulling through one of the warehouse loading doors. The door pulled closed and two men were stationed outside. Kaplan followed a truck down the main entrance road, past the warehouse, before selectively parking the Mercedes on a side street in the shadow of a larger warehouse, which provided him with two things, a visual of both the warehouse and access road and a place to conceal the vehicle in a darken
ed alley.
Moss looked worried as Kaplan got back in the car. "If Scalini was already in there waiting, he won't waste much time going to work on Tony."
"Scalini's not here yet," Kaplan said.
"How do you know?"
"I checked. There is an upstairs fire escape with a row of windows overlooking the inside of the warehouse. DeLuca's car is the only one inside. These thugs have another car parked around back. Scalini won't risk exposure walking in or out of the warehouse. He'll drive in and drive out in the back of his limo. In addition to the two men who picked up Tony in Lexington, I saw one man keeping watch inside. Upstairs there is a catwalk balcony allowing him to overlook almost the entire warehouse floor below. And he's packing heavy. Looks like a silenced Uzi strapped over his shoulder. I saw a couple of rooms upstairs as well. As far as I could tell, there really isn't anything located on ground level except open floor space cluttered with crates, boxes, and metal drums. Tony has to be in one of the rooms upstairs. Both rear exits have metal doors. Bolted shut from the inside. Looks like the only way to get in is through the front door."
Moss pointed to the front of the warehouse. "Those two look like trouble. They're packing heavy too."
"There's a wino living in a box across the street," Kaplan said.
"Yeah?" Moss said. "So your plan is to see if the drunk will stagger over and ask them to let us in?"
Kaplan didn't answer. He turned around in his seat and grabbed his backpack. He pulled out two handguns, both with sound suppressors, and two wireless comm sets. "We'll need these." He held up the handguns. "Got clean ones at the B & B. Untraceable."
"You know, Kaplan, we're getting mighty close to the limit of the law."
Kaplan studied the man for a few seconds. Moss thinks too much like a cop. Sometimes laws have to be broken…or at least seriously stretched. "Inspector, before this night is over we might very well cross that line."
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