by Mel Odom
Ahead of him, Rawley was moving quietly through the shadows. A man coming the other way spotted them and yelled, “Who are you guys?” while reaching for the big pistol hanging under his arm. “Freddie, Mike, get down here!”
Suddenly Rawley shifted gears from walking to full speed. He closed the distance between himself and the big man in only a few long strides, then hurled himself into the air. Two men came running up behind the first guard, and were caught in the melee as Rawley’s impact drove his adversary backward. All four of them went down in a heap.
Leaving his gun in its holster, unwilling to increase the charges that could be leveled against them if things went down wrong, Mac broke into a run.
Rawley rolled out of the general confusion and came up on his feet. As the big man tried to stand, Rawley executed a spinning back kick that knocked the man’s pistol out of his hand, followed by another spinning back kick that crashed into the man’s face. The big man went stumbling away with blood spilling from his broken nose.
Catching the second man’s arm in his, Rawley spun and twisted the captured wrist. Bone snapped, followed immediately by the man’s screams of pain. Coming back to face his opponent again, Rawley fired a boot into the man’s forehead. The man’s head jerked back and he collapsed.
The third man had a knife. Mac ducked under the wild swing and set his feet. He’d studied martial arts for a time, but couldn’t break the boxing reflexes he’d counted on for so long. His right fist jabbed three times in quick succession, rocking the man’s head each time. The man’s knife hand whipped back and Mac let it go by. When the man swung again, he blocked the movement with his left arm, threw an overhand jab that caught the man’s jaw and set him up, then followed it with a snapping right cross that dropped the guard like a poleaxed steer. Mac wasn’t even breathing hard.
Yelling in pain and anger, and moving at an uncertain trot, the first man reached for Rawley. A slight grin twisted Rawley’s mouth. He captured the man’s hand by the wrist, then pulled on it as he deflected the man’s reach and stepped outside it. When the guard was close enough, Rawley twice smashed him in the face with his elbow. Before the man could fall, Rawley grabbed the back of his shirt, pulled him down, and met him with a knee to the ribs.
Mac could see the guard was out on his feet as the man fell backward.
“Cuff them,” Rawley said, bending to the task. “Don’t want these guys coming back to haunt us.”
Mac took a pair of plastic disposable cuffs from his windbreaker pocket. Rawley was an expert shot, but the man was clearly a trained killer in martial arts. Mac knew Rawley had had to hold himself back to keep from killing the two men he’d taken on.
Within seconds the guard team was cuffed. Only one of them was regaining consciousness.
Rawley took the lead again.
Trailing behind him, gun in his fist, Mac triggered the SeekNFire programming. Adrenaline spun his senses as his palm scanned the butt of the Delta Elite.
A door came into view around the sloping corner of the observation run. Rawley approached it with a flat card in his hand, ran the card through an electromagnetic reader, and stepped through when the door opened.
Mac covered Rawley’s back as he followed.
The room was spacious and well lit, with a nautical theme. Books lined one wall, all of them leather-bound in colors that let the observer know they were sets. None of them gave the appearance of ever having been removed from the shelf. A brass ship’s wheel hung on the wall opposite the bookshelves, and another wall was covered with sailing pictures.
There was a desk of glass and steel at the other end of the room. Four phones, a computer system, scattered notebooks, and a well-thumbed atlas covered the desktop. Behind the desk was a fat, bald man with a pencil mustache. He was on the phone. His dark suit was expensive, and he sported a yellow carnation in his lapel. The man took a pipe out of his mouth as he took in Rawley and Mac. The bittersweet smell of red satin filled the room. “Let me get back to you on that,” he said, punching off the phone without giving the other person time to respond.
Rawley came to a halt in front of the desk. His pistol was still in his hand, and was aimed at the second button down on the fat man’s shirt. “Haldane.”
“Who are you wiseacres?”
“We’re the guys who just took out the security team you’re hitting that hidden panic button for,” Rawley said. “Me, I’m the guy interested in whether or not I can hit that second button of yours when I pull the trigger, in case we missed any of your guys.”
“How many did you take out?”
“Three.” Rawley held up fingers on his free hand. Mac turned to keep an eye on the door. Haldane was putting up a good front, but the man was scared.
His was the kind of business where a good dose of fear was healthy.
“You missed five of them,” Haldane said.
“Then you better call them off before somebody gets hurt.”
“You guys think you can waltz in here, threaten me, and waltz back out without a scratch? What are you after? The safe? Screw you. Nobody takes nothing from me.”
Rawley took something out of his pocket and tossed it at Haldane.
The object hit the desktop with a glassy ring, then slid to a stop next to the computer keyboard.
Haldane picked it up and looked at it. Confusion twisted his features and he took an unconscious drag on the red satin-loaded pipe. “This is a 1933 Indian head nickel.”
“Yeah,” Rawley replied.
Two gunmen suddenly filled the doorway with drawn weapons.
Mac tensed involuntarily as the SeekNFire programming automatically trained the 10mm’s sights on the gunman carrying an Uzi machine pistol.
“Put the guns down,” one of the men commanded, “and back out of the room. Do it now!”
Haldane waved at the guards. “Get out of here, Crittenden, and take those other dweebs with you. When I get through talking to these guys, I want to talk to you and Barry about the security around here.”
Chastened, the man nodded and lowered his weapon. “Yes, sir.”
Haldane juggled the nickel in his hand and gazed at Rawley in open speculation. “A coin like this you don’t just come by.”
“No,” Rawley agreed.
“Not many people know what it means to me.”
“No.”
“Yet you got one.”
“Yeah.”
“I owe the guy who gave you this really big.”
“Yeah. You gave him twenty of those nickels nine years ago.”
“So you and I both know he doesn’t give them back to me lightly.”
“No. He owes me really big.”
“What does he owe you for.”
“That’s between him and me.”
Haldane’s eyebrows elevated in appreciation. “So what can I do for you?” He dropped the nickel into a vest pocket.
“Somebody’s done some document work for the Korean Embassy. I want to know about it.”
“What kind of work? Floating them into the country?”
“No. I think they got in on their own, but they’ve gotten walking-around papers since they’ve been here. A crew of them went down in flames in Atlanta last night.”
“Are you FBI?”
“It’s my nickel,” Rawley reminded.
Still on edge, wanting a cigarette because of the smoke swirling around in the room, Mac let his gun arm relax but didn’t return the Delta Elite to its holster. ‘
“What do you want to know?” Haldane leaned forward in his chair and tapped the computer keyboard.
“Everything.”
“That’s going to take some time.”
“We can wait.”
*
It took an hour and twenty-three minutes. When Haldane settled back in his chair, mopping sweat from his brow after yelling at and intimidating almost a dozen people over the phone, they had a picture of what was going on. According to the information Haldane had turned up, several K
oreans that were affiliated with the Korean Embassy had been outfitted with false IDs that would show them to be native-born citizens. Almost all of them were listed as residents of Boston and the city’s suburbs. Haldane had no idea what the Koreans were doing in the area.
Mac took notes and pocketed the list of false IDs Haldane had been able to confirm.
“Anything else?” Haldane asked.
“No,” Rawley answered.
“Then get out of here. You’re wasting my time and I’ve got a business to run.”
“Terrific.” Rawley reached under his bomber jacket and pulled out a rectangular brick wired with a sophisticated detonator. He slapped it down on the glass desktop, then showed Haldane the compact device he had in his hand. “Plastic explosive. The only thing that keeps it from going off in your face is the fact that I’ve got my thumb on this button. You touch it, it goes up anyway. See this amber light?” He pointed.
His features stained an unhealthy gray, Haldane nodded. “Hey, you don’t need nothing like this. Come on.”
“Some of your playmates out in the hallway might feel like trying to get a pound of flesh when we try to leave. Like you, I don’t have time to waste. And I don’t have another nickel to make sure we get a safe walk out of here.” Rawley pointed at the amber light again. “When this goes off, you can touch it. Get rid of it any way you like.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“Because I made a promise to the guy I got the nickel from. He wanted you left intact.”
Haldane nodded.
Rawley headed for the door. “In case you get any bright ideas about leaving the room and having your guys try to whack us anyway, just keep in mind the cocaine lab you’re running on the floor above us. An explosion, even if all it does is destroy this room, is going to cause an official inspection. Do you think you can hide all the evidence before the authorities get here?’’
“Get out,” Haldane snarled.
Rawley went, brushing by the outside security personnel as Haldane bellowed orders for them to leave Mac and Rawley alone. Mac followed, but didn’t put his gun away till they hit the dance floor. His stomach was tense. He’d been wondering how they were going to leave the club without another confrontation, but he hadn’t foreseen anything like Rawley’s play.
Outside the air seemed cooler and the darkness more complete.
Rawley headed for the parking lot, turning his bomber jacket collar up a little more. “You know somebody who can trace that list on the QT? ‘
“We can have Maggie do it.”
“Maybe, but she’ll be using FBI codes. I think our security has been holed. Until we plug the leak or know for sure it doesn’t exist, let’s take a shot at using different channels.”
“Okay. I’ve got a guy who works out of the district attorney’s office in Boston that I still swap Christmas cards with. I’ll ask him to take a look.”
“Sounds good.” Rawley flicked off the arming switch on the detonator and pocketed it .
Mac opened the door of his sedan, then reached in and turned off the overhead light so they could stay in the shadows of the parking lot. “Haldane’s really running a coke lab in there?”
“Yeah.”
“For how long?”
“Beats me. I just found out about it this afternoon when I got that nickel and figured our play into and out of the building.”
“What are we going to do about it?”
“Me? I’m not doing anything. I got what I came for, that’s why I made the trip.”
“You’re going to leave him and his operation intact?”
“That coke lab is the problem of the Washington, D.C. , police department, vice section.”
Mac glanced back up at the building.
“Look,” Rawley said, “if Slade said burn the guy, I’d burn him. Until then, Haldane isn’t anything to me. Just a place to get information tonight. I’ll probably never see him again. As far as the coke goes, don’t expect me to buy your altruistic feelings. Nobody’s putting a gun to an addict’s head and making him buy that stuff. If you have a market for something out there, somebody’s going to provide it. You can’t save people from themselves. Trust me, I know. And in case you forgot, I turned off the explosive. Could be Haldane’s boys will be out here any minute to pick up where we left off. We left a couple of them really hurting. Let me know if you find anything out with that list.”
“I will.” Mac dropped into the driver’s seat and watched Rawley cross the parking lot and climb into a full-size Chevy truck. Mac scratched the license-plate number on his pad as Rawley wheeled the vehicle onto South Capitol Street. He didn’t try to follow the man. No one had successfully tailed Rawley, and Wilson discouraged any curiosity that was out of place. Rawley was entitled to his privacy.
Turning the other way, taking the long way back to his apartment to give him time to work the cell phone, Mac called the Washington, D.C., Department of Motor Vehicles person he knew personally, and had her run the truck’s plate for him. She said she’d get back to him within minutes.
He punched in a new series of numbers, got a friend of a friend in vice, and clued the guy in about the coke lab Haldane was operating above the club. The narco squad wouldn’t be able to go in immediately, but they could set up surveillance on the building now that they knew about it. Within weeks Haldane would be out of the drug business for a while—or on the way to another.
While he was waiting for the connection to Boston, he crossed the Anacostia River. Moonlight filmed a soft glow over the sluggish water, then leaked out over the fog already gathering along the banks. He reached his friend in Boston and was told to call in the morning to initiate the search for the names on the list. Mac thanked the guy and hung up.
The phone rang just before he tok the left on Massachusetts Avenue. “McDonald.”
“Hey, Mac, it’s Trudy. I found that truck you were looking for.”
“Are you going to tell me, or just keep me in suspense?”
“The truck belongs to Hayden Scroggins.” She added an address from the northeast quadrant of the city. “It was reported stolen about ten minutes ago by the guy who stole it, then he called in and told us where to find it. Scroggins didn’t even know it was missing. Is that what you were expecting?”
“No.” Mac felt a frown darken his face. None of his ex-wives had ever liked that look. “But it makes sense. Thanks.”
“Want to tell me why you were asking?”
“Can’t. It’s classified information. If l told you, I’d have to kill you.”
“You sure know how to turn a girl’s head. Well, if l don’t get the story, you at least owe me lunch.”
“Done. Give me another three or four days, and you can set up when and where.”
She agreed and he broke the connection.
Reaching inside his windbreaker, he took his cigarette pack out of a pocket and shook one free. He lit it, cracking the window to let the smoke get sucked away. He was tired. The few hours of sleep he’d managed in the afternoon had left him wanting more. Rawley got under his skin. The man played things too closely. The truck had been a subtle message tonight to leave well enough alone.
Not for the first time, Mac wondered how dangerous uncovering Rawley’s real identity would be.
But it was a puzzle he couldn’t resist. Rawley represented too many questions, and every question was punctuated with danger. Wilson wasn’t satisfied with things either, but Rawley served a purpose, and Mac couldn’t fault Slade for keeping that in mind.
In the early days of Omega Blue, there’d been some consternation that the special agents assigned to the unit would become just as bad as the criminals they were working to put away. In Rawley’s case, though, Mac was willing to believe that the man had probably started out on equal footing, whether it was from training with a government agency or a background in the Mafia. He didn’t like thinking about what would happen if Rawley ever turned on them.
*
Harry Prio followed the man ahead of him through the corridor of the third floor of the motel. The lights were dim, and people passing them in the hallway kept their eyes down. Prio didn’t worry about being recognized. The Hotel Briscoe was where you went when you wanted to turn invisible. Media personalities and performers lounged there when they were in town and didn’t want any of the e-tabloids dishing the real dirt on them.
The hard guy came to a stop outside room 328 and took up a position.
Glancing back down the hallway Prio saw that three other men were there to control the situation.
“It’s open,” the security man said in a low voice.
Prio slipped his hand under his coat and freed the silenced Colt .45 automatic from its belly holster. He entered the room as quietly as possible.
The living room area was dim. A television in the corner was tuned to a twenty-four-hour news channel. The light flickered over the lean assortment of furniture. The sounds of passionate moaning could be heard from the bedroom.
Prio eased into the bedroom, managed to stay out of sight of the two people performing sexual gymnastics on the round bed. The familiar anticipation of the voyeur filled him: his body reacted to the sights, sounds, and smells inside the room.
The woman was on top, her taut hips partially swaddled by the crisp white sheets. Perspiration gleamed along her body as moonlight from the partially open windows glazed it. She looked tanned and healthy, her blond hair tumbling halfway down her back.
Congressman Keith Jarvis lay underneath her, his hands pulling at her flesh. His complexion was pasty, and his hair-normally combed back-was in wild disarray across his forehead.
The woman was Angel Candless, a secretary in the congressman’s office. She had a coke habit that DiVarco had found out about and exploited. She thought she was here tonight to let the congressman get caught with his face in compromising pictures or video footage.
Prio knew the woman wouldn’t recognize her mistake until it was too late.
Without warning, Jarvis surged up against the woman and pulled her to him tightly. An animal moan escaped his lips. Candless laughed good-naturedly and whispered in his ear.
