Police sirens sounded nearby, startling them both. Levi glanced at his watch, cursed, and pulled out his cell phone.
“I need to get to the substation,” he said. “If the Slavic Collective believes the Parks collaborated with Utopia to ambush Volkov, this entire city is about to explode.”
Though Dominic was still reeling from Levi’s accusations, he retrieved the flash drive from his pocket and held it out. “Jessica downloaded some files from Volkov’s personal computer. She wants him and his cousin in jail; it’s the only way she’ll be safe. I don’t know what’s on here, but it might help.”
When Levi reached out to take the drive, Dominic pulled it back and received a murderous glare in response. Before Levi could take a swing at him, Dominic added, “I want to come with you to the station. I need to see this through.”
“You think I would let you out of my sight right now so you can make another monumental error in judgment?” Levi snatched the drive out of Dominic’s hand. “You’re coming with me whether you want to or not.”
While Levi called in to dispatch, Dominic gazed up at the ink-black sky. Beyond this alley lay a city on the brink of war—and if Jessica got caught in the crossfire, it would be his fault.
When Levi and Dominic arrived at the substation, Martine, Wen, Rohan Chaudhary, and half the station’s personnel were already there. Levi had spent most of the car ride on the phone, being berated by a furious Martine, which gave him a good excuse not to talk to Dominic. Right now he didn’t even want to look at Dominic.
Despite the late hour, the bullpen was buzzing with frenetic activity. Utopia’s assault on the warehouse had ended with eleven dead and nine captured from both sides, but other violent incidents were flaring up like grease fires across the Valley. Every substation in the LVMPD was coordinating their resources, dispatching officers to trouble spots with the goal of containing the situation before it spiraled out of control.
“Danny Park’s been murdered,” was the first thing Martine said when Levi and Dominic joined the group at the center of the bullpen.
Levi stopped in his tracks. “What?”
“We just heard. He and Norman Mansfield were shot outside his apartment. Mansfield survived; Park didn’t.”
“Do we know who was responsible?”
“Take a wild guess.”
“Shit.” Levi pressed one hand to his forehead. “This is what I was afraid of. Now the Parks will have no choice but to retaliate.”
“Dude, are you feeling okay?” Jonah Gibbs asked. “Sounds like you have a wicked sore throat.”
If Levi had been expecting the comment, he could have controlled his reaction better. After the night he’d had, though, it caught him off guard. His cheeks flared hot and he shot a furtive glance at Dominic without meaning to.
Dominic, who was more skilled at being a deceitful, manipulative bastard, kept his expression blank, but the implication was clear. Gibbs’s mouth fell open soundlessly—for once, he had no smart-ass remark to offer.
Fortunately, Rohan’s cell phone rang at that moment and distracted everyone. Rohan had withdrawn to the edge of the group when Levi and Dominic showed up, and he did not look pleased about being the sudden center of attention. Checking the screen, he said, “Excuse me, I need to take this,” and walked away.
“Did OC or Gang Crimes send anyone who can help us sort through the files I mentioned?” Levi asked Wen.
“Both bureaus have most of their people out in the field, but they were able to spare a handful of detectives. We’ll meet them in the conference room.” When Levi headed off, Wen caught him by the elbow. “Once this is over, you and I will be having a serious discussion about your decision-making,” he added, his voice quiet but fierce.
Levi nodded curtly.
Ensconced in the conference room, they got right down to business. Dominic handed his button cam off to a tech specialist and then sat with two detectives at the far end of the room, detailing his experiences with the underground casino. Meanwhile, Levi, Martine, and another OC detective named Parish went through the flash drive provided by Jessica Miller.
Levi left what looked like complicated bookkeeping records to OC. He was more interested in Sergei Volkov’s emails—Jessica had managed to download the last six months of his sent and received messages.
A few minutes in, a pattern began to emerge.
October 24. In an email exchange with Volkov, Milo Radich mentioned meeting Kasper Dubicki for drinks to discuss a “business matter” he wisely left ambiguous. He also made an off-hand comment suggesting that Dubicki’s wife was stepping out with Paul Yu, an accusation accompanied by some virulently racist language that left Levi sick to his stomach.
October 28. Radich notified Volkov that he’d reassigned one of the Collective’s foot soldiers at the last minute—a change Levi quickly figured out had protected the man, a clear favorite of Radich’s, from Los Avispones’s misdirected drive-by.
October 31. A snarky email from Radich wondered how Danny Park was going to survive a night of Halloween debauchery with his “babysitter” Norman Mansfield out of town.
November 1. A blistering tirade from Volkov instructed Radich to immediately cut off all financial and logistical support to a certain warehouse in North Las Vegas. Reading between the lines of the obfuscating language, Levi gathered that the human-trafficking operation had been brought into Vegas by another cell of the Collective beyond Volkov’s control and he was dead set on getting rid of them.
November 6. Radich confirmed a scheduled delivery to a block of buildings owned by Los Avispones—buildings that had been burned to the ground the very next day.
The emails went on like that, connection after connection piling up until they became impossible to ignore. Read individually, none of them were damning alone; it was only when seen all together with the benefit of hindsight that they pointed a clear finger in Radich’s direction.
Yet while Levi wouldn’t be surprised to learn scum like Radich was a traitor to his own cause, he had no motive to anchor his argument. He printed out Volkov’s emails and handed them to Martine without comment so he wouldn’t bias her judgment.
Minutes later, she looked up and said, “Who the hell is Milo Radich and why has he been trying to start a gang war?”
“Radich?” Dominic said from the other end of the table. “He works for Sergei Volkov—actually, they’re old friends. What do you mean by trying to start a gang war?”
“It’s what I was trying to tell Volkov tonight.” Levi gestured to the printouts. “Someone on the inside has been sabotaging the Park family, Los Avispones, and the local branch of the Slavic Collective, trying to stir up trouble between all three groups. Radich is way too closely connected to those incidents for it to be a coincidence. Plus, you saw how hard he tried to convince Volkov tonight that the Parks had set him up. He’s the saboteur; I feel it in my gut. I just don’t know why.”
Dominic frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. Radich may be racist, anti-Semitic human garbage, but he and Volkov have been friends for decades. I can’t imagine Radich betraying him. Not for personal gain, anyway.”
Levi blinked and glanced back at the pages. Dominic was right. Beyond Levi’s own experiences with Radich tonight, the man’s racism and anti-Semitism bled through every word of his emails—as did his misogyny and a fair bit of homophobia, though he seemed smart enough to curtail the worst of the latter when he was communicating with Volkov.
“The way Volkov runs his cell must drive Radich insane,” Levi said, speaking slowly as he thought it through. “He’s openly gay, his boyfriend is black, he works with Emily Park as an equal, he’s continually pushed to increase interethnic collaboration between the city’s various criminal elements . . .”
“A socially progressive mob boss?” said Martine.
“Kind of, yeah. Radich clearly doesn’t like that Volkov entered such close partnerships with groups that are primarily Korean and Mexican. If he reached the end of his rope,
he might take it upon himself to bust up those relationships.”
Martine raised a skeptical eyebrow. “And target his own organization in the process?”
“Before the tournament started tonight, I overheard Radich trying to convince Volkov to leave—that he would be in danger if he stayed,” Dominic said. “If Radich is your saboteur, do you think he also knew about the ambush?”
The ambush . . .
“That’s it,” Levi breathed. “Radich knew about the ambush because he planned it. The people who’ve benefited most from everything that’s happened are the city’s lower-level gangs, Utopia more than anyone. They came out of nowhere right before this all started, and thanks to this conflict, they’re well on their way to becoming major players. What if Radich has been backing them all along?”
Martine made a hissing noise of disgust. The other detectives in the room, who’d been listening without comment, all perked up. Dominic only looked bewildered.
“Utopia are the guys who attacked the warehouse, right?” he asked. “I’ve never heard of them. Who are they?”
“An emerging local gang,” said Dressler, one of the OC detectives. “Neo-Nazis, really, though that’s not how they identify themselves. A high-placed mole inside the Slavic Collective would explain a lot. Ever since they first started operating, they’ve had suspiciously good luck—always knowing when and where to strike at their enemies’ weakest points. Their level of financial resources has never made sense for such a young group, and they’ve been profiting a lot off these recent power struggles.”
“I’m not sure this is going to make any difference now,” Levi said. “For all we know, Radich died in that warehouse tonight. Even if he survived, it may be too late to stop what he put in motion.”
“It’s not,” Parish said. She’d been reviewing the contents of the flash drive with Levi and Martine, taking responsibility for the more technical documents due to her greater familiarity with the subject matter. Now she looked up from her laptop with an astonished expression. “These files are a goldmine. Volkov may have progressive ideals, but it turns out he’s not above maintaining an insurance policy on his own partners. There’s enough here for arrest warrants not only on Volkov, Radich, and half a dozen of the Collective’s highest-ranking local members, but also Eddie Mercado, Emily Park, and a bunch of their people as well. If we do this right, it could be the biggest OC bust in Las Vegas history.”
Palpable energy buzzed through the room, and everyone startled when the door swung open.
“More bad news,” Wen said, grim-faced as he entered with Rohan and Carl Keller. “The Parks are planning to launch a full-out assault on Sergei Volkov’s Summerlin compound.”
“That’s not their style,” Dressler said.
Keller spread his hands. “It’s retaliation for Danny’s death. Word’s gotten back to us that they hold Volkov responsible, and they have support from Los Avispones as well. We’re mobilizing all available units, including SWAT.”
“Pardon the interruption,” Rohan said, “but the call I received earlier was from the FBI’s Las Vegas field office. Apparently they have an undercover agent somewhere inside the Slavic Collective. We understand that forceful intervention is unavoidable at this point, and we’re not even sure the agent is present at the compound, but we’d like to be involved in the operation.”
“Of course.” Wen got out his cell phone. “I’ll call the SWAT captain right now. Valcourt, Abrams, I want you at the scene with everyone else.”
“I’ll start rousting judges for these warrants,” said Parish.
As everyone set to their tasks with a heightened sense of urgency, Levi looked around the room, his stomach dropping.
Dominic was gone.
He knew exactly where Dominic was heading and why, too. A moment passed where he considered pursuit, but he restrained the impulse.
Dominic was a veteran soldier and an experienced bounty hunter. He could handle himself. Right now, the LVMPD needed Levi more.
Volkov’s sprawling Mediterranean mansion sat on a corner lot in an exclusive gated community in Summerlin. The three-acre property was surrounded by ten-foot walls screened with box hedges and topped with electrified fencing. Bordering it to the rear was a manicured golf course without a single tree in sight; the residential lot next door belonged to Volkov’s shell company as well and had been intentionally left undeveloped so it was a flat, wide-open plain lacking the smallest hint of cover.
In short, the house was a contemporary suburban fortress.
By the time Levi, Martine, and their squadron of LVMPD officers arrived, the mansion was under siege: the community’s gates had been rammed open and the security guard left for dead. The Parks’ people and their Los Avispones allies were swarming the road along the property’s east-facing front edge, where the gate to the driveway was the perimeter’s only weak spot. Hunkered behind their cars, they were exchanging aggressive fire with the Collective guards defending the house from inside the walls.
Assisted by the FBI, the LVMPD was splitting its efforts between three goals: evacuating the rest of the neighborhood’s residents, blockading the road in front of the mansion to prevent the violence from spilling past the contained area, and assessing the house and grounds for an alternative approach. Storming the firefight between the various criminal factions would only result in massive casualties on all sides, but they couldn’t let the assault continue without intervention.
Keller had suggested that extracting Volkov from the compound might divert the Parks’ energies, break up the siege, and allow law enforcement to swoop in and seize advantage of the distraction. It was a good plan, though they still faced the obstacles of the house’s defenses, plus the additional difficulty of avoiding notice by the Parks and Los Avispones.
Levi had studied satellite imagery of the compound during the drive, and one anomaly kept grabbing his attention: a gazebo in the northwest corner, bordered by the edge of the golf course on one side and a quiet residential road on the other. It was a stupid bit of frippery to include in an otherwise well-guarded property, because the roof of the gazebo was definitely as high as the nearby wall.
Dressed in full tactical gear, he jumped out of the van at the temporary SWAT command post and made a beeline for the team leader. “I want to check out the property’s northwest corner,” he called over the sound of automatic gunfire and distant screams.
She turned toward him with an annoyed expression, her open mouth already forming a clear refusal—then did a double take as recognition flashed across her face. Nodding, she gestured to nearby SWAT officers to escort him.
Martine and Rohan came along as well. Their team kept a sharp eye out as they closed in on their target, but although the rapid-fire crack of gunshots was still loud here, this was about as remote from the action as they could get. The Parks hadn’t dispatched sentries this far.
Levi took in the features he’d observed from the satellite. On the strip of land between the golf course and the road—land Volkov didn’t own—was an enormous oak tree with long, sturdy branches that extended close to Volkov’s property line. Beyond the wall, the domed roof of the gazebo stood about seven feet away.
The path was laid out in his head like a map. “I could make those jumps,” he said to Martine.
“There’s no point,” said one of the SWAT guys. “The electric fencing would fry you halfway through.”
Rohan hummed agreement. “Even if you made it over the wall, you’d be a sitting duck once inside. We have a good idea of the internal defenses thanks to our agent. The backyard offers no cover past the gazebo, there are surveillance cameras everywhere, it’s blanketed with motion-triggered floodlights, and there are armed guards patrolling the entire property. They may be distracted by the frontal assault, but there will still be men watching the back.”
“So what, we just keep sitting around?” Levi whirled to face him. “That’s not an option, but if we wade into that firefight, a lot of cops are go
nna die. If we get Volkov out of there and tempt the Parks into following, maybe we can avoid—”
BOOM.
He and the others instinctively crouched as an explosion rent the air and reverberated through the ground. They stayed low while the SWAT officers communicated tensely with the command post via radio.
“The Parks blew the driveway gate,” came the news. “They’re pushing inside. Powers that be say we gotta move in. They’re calling in air support too.”
Levi groaned and glanced up helplessly at the wall. This was going to be a fucking bloodbath.
The world around them plunged into total darkness.
It was so unexpected that Levi flattened to his belly without thought, one hand shooting out to reassure himself of Martine’s safety even as she did the same next to him. The distant gunfire cut off save for a few random spurts here and there, and he heard shouts of confusion and alarm coming from all directions.
Lifting his head, he saw that all the lights had gone out—not just in Volkov’s compound, but on the adjacent roads and in every house in the neighborhood visible from where he lay. The only illumination came from the moon and stars above.
“Did we knock out Volkov’s power?” Rohan asked.
The SWAT guys’ radios crackled. “We were trying,” one of them said, “but we were still in talks with the electric company—”
“It wasn’t us,” said Levi. “Look, the entire neighborhood’s blacked out.”
His eyes were beginning to adjust to the lack of electric light. He looked over at Martine to find her frowning.
“You’d think Volkov would have a backup generator,” she said.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Levi flinched at what sounded like the resumption of gunfire—until the earsplitting percussive cracks were followed by an explosion of bright lights that streaked through the sky from the depths of the golf course.
Fireworks.
Moments later, another fusillade started up beyond the empty lot to the south of Volkov’s house—and then across the street to the east, then to the north. Within a matter of seconds, the compound was surrounded on all sides by a chaotic barrage of mismatched fireworks filling the air with thunderous booms, pops, and high-pitched whistles while hectic multicolored lights strobed through the darkness.
Cash Plays Page 25
