“You must be referring to that little scrape in Mogadishu,” he said, laughing.
“Actually, I was referring to the pickup truck that I just saw burst into flames on the New Jersey Turnpike.”
“Oh, is that what happened?” Volkov said, as if it were nothing more than the answer to a riddle he’d only casually considered. “I wondered why we lost communication. Too bad. Too bad. They were good men. But apparently not good enough. I should have known they were no match for Derrick Storm.”
“I’m assuming you didn’t call to praise me, so let’s cut to the chase: Whitely Cracker isn’t coming with you. He’s not going to make those trades for you. He’s with me and he’s staying with me. So you can either drop it and slither back to whatever hole you hide in, or you can die. It’s up to you.”
“Tut-tut, Derrick Storm. Do you really think a man as prepared as myself didn’t have a backup plan? I certainly hoped the gentlemen in the pickup truck would persuade Mr. Cracker to join me. But I got myself a little… insurance.”
Through gritted teeth, Cracker said, “What are you talking about?”
“Would you be so kind as to put me on speakerphone? I’d like you both to hear something.”
Storm turned to Cracker. “Put it on speaker.”
Cracker touched a button. Storm said, “Okay. We’re listening.”
Volkov spoke to a person in the room with him. “Go ahead, my dear,” he said. “Beg for your life.”
The sound of Mrs. G. Whitely Cracker V filled the air: “Whitely, honey? I love you. I’m so sorry… that I…”
“Melissa! Oh my God, what are they—”
“That’s enough.” Volkov cut them off. “Isn’t it fortunate for me that my men were able to grab her just before she hopped away like the little bunny she is. They tell me she almost made it out, too. Would you like to hear from your darling children, Mr. Cracker, or can you trust that if I’ve got your wife, I’ve got them as well?”
“What do you want, Volkov?” Cracker said, trying to sound brave. “You want money? I’ve got all the money you need. I’ll give you ten million for each of them, wired to any account anywhere in the world, no questions, no strings. Make it twenty million. Half now and half when—”
“Keep your money, Mr. Cracker. You must not have been listening to me this morning. Why would I want your money when I can have power? Ultimate power. For myself and my country. I assure you, there is not enough money in the world to make me give up that dream. Not even in your bank account.”
Storm looked at Cracker’s face. His expression was shocked and overwhelmed and utterly desperate. Without a single word spoken, it informed Storm that trying to talk sense into this man wouldn’t work. So, yes, Storm could tell him that there was no point in negotiating with terrorists. Storm could tell him that they needed to take control of this situation, to strike before being stricken, to trust that Volkov was ultimately a pragmatist who wouldn’t kill the Cracker family while he still needed them for leverage. Storm could tell Cracker if he acquiesced and did what Volkov wanted, he and his family would be dead the moment Volkov no longer found them useful.
But Storm knew Cracker was beyond listening. Cracker had clearly made his mistakes—his recent actions, in par tic u lar, made him anything but the tower of virtuousness the world took him to be. Still, at his core, he was a decent man who would do anything to save his wife and children.
Even if doing it would actually result in them all being killed.
“Okay,” Storm said. “So you’re holding the cards. How’s this going to go?”
“Mr. Cracker will present himself to me at the international departures entrance to Terminal B at Newark Airport in two hours,” Volkov said. “Since I know where your mind is going at this moment, let me start by saying that if we find Mr. Cracker suddenly placed on the No-Fly List or if there is anything else done to impede his progress out of the country, the consequences for his family will be severe.”
“I under—” Cracker started, but Volkov shouted him down.
“I’m not finished. Mr. Cracker will be carrying his passport, but he will have no other luggage. He will come alone. I have trained my men to know what your CIA agents look like and what their tricks are. If I or my men get even the slightest inkling Mr. Cracker is not alone or that you have organized some kind of resistance, trust that I will mail him back his family in pieces.”
“Okay, we got it,” Storm said before Cracker could respond. “But we can’t make that happen in two hours. Your men destroyed our car. His passport is at his house in Chappaqua. We can’t get a new car, get up to Chappaqua, and then get down to Newark Airport in two hours. Make it four hours.”
In four hours, Storm could prevail on Jedediah Jones to get a team in place. It would be a team that, whatever Volkov thought, no thugs would be able to sniff out, no matter what Volkov told them to look for.
But in two hours? It would be nearly impossible to coordinate all those moving parts and not have them looking like the Key-stone Cops. Someone would screw up.
And Volkov knew it.
“You’re a resourceful man, Storm. You can make it happen,” Volkov said. “I will see you in two hours, Mr. Cracker. Or I’ll enjoy raping your pretty wife while your children are hacked to bits.”
The next utterance out of Cracker’s mouth was a panicked what-will-we-do-now-how-are-we-going-to-handle-this-what-will-happen-to-us torrent that made even less sense as it went along. Storm waited it out.
When he was quite confident it was done, Storm said, “Give me your wallet.”
“Why do… why do you need my wallet?”
“Let’s have a return to the no-questions policy, please. Just hand me your wallet.”
Cracker reached into his back pocket and pulled out a slender, expensive-looking leather billfold. The only cash in it was a single hundred-dollar bill. Storm picked through the credit cards until he arrived at the black American Express card. He walked toward the used car portion of the gas station, entering a glass door that had a jagged crack running along its lower portion and bells tied to its handle.
Cracker tagged along but, in keeping with the recently reinstated policy, said nothing. The jangling of the door brought a tired-looking black man from a back room.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes, do you know what this is?” Storm asked, holding out the credit card. The man squinted at it for a brief moment, and Storm continued. “Actually, let me just save you the time. It’s an American Express Centurion Card, sometimes referred to as the American Express Black Card, for obvious reasons. It is the rarest credit card in the world, and it is only issued to individuals with a net worth of at least twenty million dollars. There is a rumor that it has no limit, but that’s actually not true. The last time I checked, the limit was about six million. Point is, it’s a lot.
“This is Mr. Whitely Cracker,” Storm continued. “As you can see from the lettering on the front, he is the holder of this card. He would like to buy two of your fine used automobiles, and he would like to do it very, very quickly. Can you help us with this transaction, or do we have to take our black card elsewhere?”
The man’s eyes had come to life. He didn’t need the Cliffs-Notes version of what Storm had just laid out. He was about to sell two cars—probably two more than he had sold in the two weeks leading up to this. “No,” he said. “I think I can help you.”
“Great. What’s the most expensive car you have?”
“I got an oh-four BMW five series,” he said. “It’s under forty thousand miles. I got it for sale at twenty-one. It’s just out there if you want to have a look.”
“No need. He’ll take it. And please charge him double. What else?”
“I got an oh-five Cadillac STS. It’s got a little bit of a—”
“No good. Do you have any Fords?”
“I got a two-year-old Fiesta, low miles, for thirteen five.”
“He’ll take it. Please charge him triple.”
“Uh
… okay,” the guy said and was already banging the numeric pad of an ancient desk calculator. “With tax, that comes to ninety-two thousand, three hundred and—”
“Make it an even hundred thousand,” Storm said, handing him the card. “I dislike haggling. But we’re going to drive them out of here in the next three minutes.”
“You’re the boss.”
“Do they have gas in them?” Storm asked, handing him the card.
“Yes, sir. Full tanks. I’m going to need his signature on some—”
“Forge it. Just get us the keys as quickly as possible.”
“Give me two minutes,” he said, shuffling with a little more alacrity toward a computer in the back room.
Cracker waited until the man was out of the room, then said, “Can I ask a question now?”
“Make it quick.”
“Why two cars?”
“Sorry to tell you this, mate, but we’ve got to split up the band. You’re going to get your passport and get yourself to Newark Airport, like the man said. I suggest you drive quite quickly if you’re going to make it in time. Just make sure you keep your cell phone on in case I need to contact you.”
“And where are you going?”
“Bayonne.”
“Bayonne? As in New Jersey?”
“Yes,” Storm said. “I hear it’s lovely this time of year.”
CHAPTER 32
BAYONNE, New Jersey
Storm’s plan started with one basic, unassailable assumption.
Volkov was lying.
This was based on experience, intuition, and homespun common sense. It’s like Carl Storm always said: If a man like Volkov said there was a rat on the moon, don’t bring cheese.
So it was that Derrick Storm assumed that the meeting at the international terminal, the passport, the stern warnings about not utilizing the No-Fly List—it was all a ruse to make him think that Cracker was going to be smuggled out of the country to join his family in some foreign locale, where the awful deed would be done.
That, of course, meant that Cracker was unlikely to make it out of New Jersey; that his family was likely there already, holed up in the abandoned factory that Volkov believed no one knew about; that Volkov had probably set up the MonEx 4000 there and had it ready to roll.
As Storm pulled away from the used car lot, he had texted Agent Kevin Bryan: “Volkov Bayonne location still occupied?”
Shortly into his drive, Storm got the reply: “Affirmative. Infrared shows fourteen life forms in building. Helicopter now gone. Must have been a renter.”
Storm yearned to have the full support of Jedediah Jones and the nerds—not just furtive texting with one agent—but had roughed it without Jones’s resources before. He could do it again. Besides, he knew what involving Jones would look like. With two phone calls, Jones could get everything from the Green Berets to Navy Seal Team 6 dropping in on the building from all sides. It would make for dozens of chances for things to get screwed up. At least working alone, Storm thought wryly, there would only be one chance.
He got off Exit 14A of the New Jersey Turnpike Extension, letting the GPS in his phone guide him through a warren of streets with numeric names in an industrial part of town. Gentrification had come to many previously rusty parts of New Jersey, with the proximity to Manhattan driving a real estate boom that transformed places like Hoboken and Jersey City with condos and office buildings.
Gentrification had not yet found Bayonne. As it had been throughout its history, it was still a manufacturing center; unfortunately it was a manufacturing center for stuff America didn’t make anymore. So it was that many of the buildings Storm passed were either boarded up or underutilized. And, as night fell and darkness began making serious headway, what little humanity that did make use of them had gone home.
Storm finally arrived at his target location and peered at it through the gloaming. It was a two-block-long, four-story, graffiti-covered brick behemoth, riddled with grime-painted windows that tended to be more broken than whole. Some long-ago owner had done the responsible thing and had the building surrounded by a chain-link fence, to keep out squatters and vagrants. But it had not been maintained. The chain link now offered only a patchwork defense against anyone who cared to inspect the building. Whole sections of it were damaged or missing.
Tufts of weeds, some of them several feet tall, had taken over the parking lot—or at least the parts of it that weren’t covered by illegally dumped piles of debris. Storm didn’t see any vehicles, but they were probably stashed around back, lest a passing police patrol car notice them and decide to inspect further.
Storm maintained a steady speed as he passed the building for the first time. He didn’t dare pass it a second time. A Ford Fiesta driving along a street in Bayonne would not attract the attention of anyone inside the factory. But a car of any make or model driving by for a second time might cause someone to take notice. He turned down the next street and pulled to the side of the road as soon as he was sure he was out of sight.
He glanced at his watch. It had been only a half hour since Volkov issued his edict. Storm thought about the fourteen life forms inside the building. Three of them were likely Cracker’s family. That left Volkov and ten hired guns. Storm assumed that, at some point, roughly half of them would depart for Newark Airport, leaving the other half to watch over the prisoners.
That’s when he would make his move. It improved his odds—five- or six-to-one felt a lot more manageable than eleven-to-one. Especially when Dirty Harry only had six rounds in him.
He would rid the world of Volkov, save Cracker’s family, then call Cracker and divert him from Newark Airport before Volkov’s goons grabbed him. Simple.
He was about to get out of the Fiesta when he saw a woman walking along the street. She was alone, which seemed strange in this part of town—and at this time of the evening—and Storm watched her, because he was trained to watch anything unusual. With a distant streetlight behind her casting a shadow in front of her, he could only make out her silhouette. She was walking with the determined strides of a woman who knew exactly where she was going.
And it turned out where she was going was the right side of Storm’s car. Before Storm could do anything to stop it, she yanked the door handle and sat down next to him in the passenger seat.
“Nice ride, Storm,” Clara Strike said. “Very manly. Do you still like the color when you’re PMSing?”
Storm looked over at Strike. She was wearing a skintight top that left little question about how well her physique had held up over the last four years. And there was that perfume, knocking him senseless, as usual.
Storm smiled. Much as Clara Strike could complicate his life, he was glad to see her. Plus, it improved his odds immensely.
“It’s a bit underpowered, I grant you. Not the Ford Motor Company’s finest effort,” he said. “But it’s growing on me. I’ve decided to name her Becky.”
“If this gets out in the intelligence community, you know your reputation as America’s greatest operative is ruined. Storm gallops to the rescue in a Ford Fiesta? It doesn’t play.”
“I was in a bit of time crunch. It was the best I could do,” Storm said, then changed the subject. “How did you find me?”
“Kevin told me where you were. He thought you sounded like you needed some help. We lost our tail on Cracker after that explosion, and he hadn’t resurfaced at any of the usual locations. So I had been looking for something to do anyway. I actually sort of thought he might be with you. Or, excuse me, with Elder Steve Dunkel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints”
“He was. I sent him on an errand. Though you probably don’t need to bother following him anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Prince Hashem’s fortune is no longer in danger. Prime Resource Investment Group’s financial situation has improved rather dramatically in the last twenty-four hours or so.”
“Oh?”
“Turns out Cracker wasn’t broke after al
l. His accountant had been stealing from him.”
“Who? Teddy?”
“I wouldn’t call him that,” Storm said. “Apparently, he doesn’t like it very much.”
“Huh. Who knew?”
“Certainly not our pal Whitely.” Storm paused for a moment, watching as the last shred of twilight disappeared, giving way to a moonless darkness.
“That’s a nice little chunk you got out of your forehead,” she said, gingerly touching near the gouge. “You okay?”
“It’s nothing. Does Jones know you’re here?”
She didn’t answer. Storm took it for a yes.
“Maybe you should leave,” he said.
“He doesn’t know,” she said.
“Are you lying to me right now?”
“It doesn’t matter what I answer, does it? You’re not going to believe me anyway. All that matters is that I’m reinforcements, and as far as I can tell you’re not in a position to turn down help.”
“Jones is a—”
“Look, forget about Jones,” Strike said.
“Yes, I’m sure he has his agenda. Is this a big shock to you? He always does and always will. Just focus on the here and now. I’m here. You’re here. I’m know you’re not just visiting Bayonne for the scenery. Kevin told me Volkov is here. Let’s make a plan and take him out.”
He knew that for the sake of three innocent people whose lives were now in danger—to say nothing of the untold millions more who would be imperiled if Volkov was to ascend to power—Storm had to get over whatever injustices Jones might be planning.
He took a deep breath and said, “Right. A plan. As I’m sure Kevin told you, Volkov is holed up in that abandoned factory down the street.”
“Yes. And I’m assuming the only reason you haven’t swallowed your pride and asked Jones to send in a full TAC team to take him out is because you’re Derrick Storm and you have to save the world all by yourself.”
“No, it’s because there are civilians in there.”
“Oh. Kevin didn’t mention that.”
“It’s because he doesn’t know. He just knows there are warm bodies that show up on the infrared.”
Storm Front: A Derrick Storm Thriller Page 26
