Crash

by David Hagberg

  “Running where?”

  “Doesn’t matter. What does matter is that she thought it was so important she not only had to get out of the building with it, but when she realized that she was about to be kidnapped, she gave it to her friend and probably told him to run. Which he did, and which got him killed.”

  “So BP was up to something illegal,” Ben said.

  “It’d be my guess. Now we’re talking about a federal crime, something the Bureau would be interested in.”

  “Not yet.”

  “First let me get ahold of someone in the Bureau’s office here, see if we can get some intel. They’re going to have to run it through channels, but it might be faster than waiting for a hit from NSA.”

  “We’re not getting the Bureau involved.”

  “Have you finally lost your mind?”

  “I’m going in alone.”

  “No way in hell,” Chip said.

  “Alone,” Ben said. “Can you copy whatever’s on the flash drive to your computer?”

  “Already done, thanks to the password.”

  “Good. Give me Hardy’s telephone number.”

  “Goddamnit.”

  “If something goes south, then you can call the Bureau. But first you’re going to let me handle it.”

  “Two problems,” Chip said. “If he agrees to the trade, you and he will have to meet so you can hand over the drive. And he’ll probably have some muscle of his own standing by, unless he’s as dumb as you are.”

  “And the second problem?”

  “If he gives you the actual location, he’ll tip off the people holding her so they’ll know you’re on your way.”

  “Fine.”

  “Bullshit, fine. There’ll be more than one of them, at least the two we know about. And you said the guy who snatched her sounded ex-military.”

  “Spetsnaz,” Ben said. “Give me Hardy’s number.”

  100

  It was a few minutes after twelve when the last man in Hardy’s usual rotating day crew of nine men and three women, most of them ex-cops, showed up to join the normal weekday overnight shift of two men. They met in the front lobby, and all of them were armed, following Hardy’s orders.

  “It’s all hands on deck. We’re looking at the possibility of a break-in sometime from now until the early day shift starts showing up at eight.”

  “Can you tell us what the nature of the break-in might be?” one of the security officers asked. “Is it a burglary?”

  “Unknown at this point,” Hardy said. “But you should expect that the assailant could be armed.”

  His landline upstairs rolled over to his cell phone after two rings. He answered it. “Hardy.”

  “Ben Whalen. I have your flash drive, and I’m willing to trade for it.”

  “What do you want in exchange?”

  “The location of Cassy Levin.”

  “Where do you want to meet?” Hardy asked without thinking.

  “Outside the Nassau Street entrance to your firm. I’ll be on foot, alone and unarmed.”

  “When?”

  “Forty minutes from now.”

  “Done,” Hardy said.

  101

  Chip parked on Nassau Street one block down from the Burnham Pike building. The only traffic was a lone cab with a fare in the back-seat that cruised past. This part of Manhattan was mostly deserted at this time of night.

  Ben got out of the car. “Give me twenty minutes, and if I’m not back by then, you can call in the reinforcements.”

  “Careful,” Chip said. “We need you.”

  “Cassy first,” Ben said, and he headed up the street.

  Hardy was waiting alone outside the building.

  Ben stopped a few feet away from him, took the flash drive from his pocket, and held it up. “Where’s Cassy?”

  “How do I know that’s the flash drive she made?”

  “You saw the list of Donni Imani’s possessions from the morgue, didn’t you?”

  “I got it earlier, after you’d been there.”

  “It will have listed the flash drive with the writing SCANDISK printed on one side and SCANDISK CRUZER 408 on the other, plus some other numbers and symbols on the bottom.”

  Hardy checked his phone, which had the inventory. “That’s right,” he said. He squinted at the screen. “It had a small piece of paper taped to the bottom of it. I don’t see it on the drive you’ve brought me.”

  “I don’t know about that. It must have come off.” The slip of paper had the password, and Ben wasn’t about to hand it over.

  With a grunt, Hardy gave him an address in Brighton Beach.

  “If she’s not there, I will come back for you. Understand?”

  Hardy nodded and held out his hand.

  Ben stepped forward and gave him the flash drive. “Go back inside.”

  “If this isn’t the real drive, I know how to find you. Understand?”

  Ben nodded, and Hardy turned and went inside the bank building.

  102

  Anosov was in the kitchen having a beer with several of his crew who were waiting for a chance with Cassy once they were given the go-ahead. None of them made mention of a long scratch that was still oozing a little blood on the side of his face. The woman had fought back so hard that in the end he’d just left her alone. The Canadian syndicate with whom he’d made a deal for her would not have accepted damaged goods.

  His cell phone rang. It was Butch Hardy.

  “I have the flash drive, but you have trouble coming your way.”

  “What trouble?”

  “Levin’s boyfriend. And he’s an ex–Navy SEAL.”

  Anosov smiled. “We’ll be ready. What about the woman?”

  “Make both of them disappear.”

  “Consider it done,” Anosov said and hung up. “We’re going to have a little fun tonight,” he told his people. “Get everyone down here. Armed.”

  103

  Ben gave Chip the address where Hardy told him that Cassy was being held, then programmed it into his cell phone. “You’re going back to the hotel, and I’m going to drive myself over.”

  “Not a chance in hell,” Chip protested.

  “You’re a damned fine engineer, but you’re not combat trained.”

  “I brought another pistol.”

  “Which the first guy you came up against would take away from you,” Ben said. “I’m doing this alone.”

  “This is bullshit, Ben. I’m calling the Bureau right now.”

  “No.”

  “Goddamnit.”

  “I’ll leave my cell phone on. And if sounds to you like I’m in trouble, then you can call for backup.”

  “It’ll be too late by then.”

  “It’s my call.”

  104

  Anosov’s crew of ten men gathered around in the kitchen, and he briefed them on who was coming their way and why.

  “The American cowboy riding in to save his girlfriend,” Vasili Melnik said, and the rest of them laughed.

  “I want this clean, no outside interference,” Anosov said. “Which means we have to let the gentleman inside before we take him down.”

  “Why don’t you let me and Sergei save us all some trouble?” Melnik said. “We’ll wait outside—no guns—and when the stupid son of a bitch shows up, we’ll break his fucking neck.”

  “He’s an ex-SEAL,” Anosov said.

  “Pizdec,” Melnik said. Pussy.

  “I want it clean. No noise.”

  Melnik and Sergei left their pistols on the kitchen table and went out the back door.

  “SEALs aren’t pussies,” Anosov told the others. “If he should get past them, I want him to think that they were the only lookouts on duty, and that the rest of us are either asleep in our beds or maybe playing poker in the dining room.”

  The others were skeptical, but they nodded.

  “I want a layered defense. Scatter yourselves between here and the attic.”

  105

  B
en drove past some brownstone apartments, lights on in some of the windows, then turned down a narrower street of two-story houses. He passed one with a steel fence and a gate that led into a trash-filled backyard as the GPS on his phone announced that he had arrived at his destination.

  Not slowing down, he drove to the end of the block where he shut off the headlights and made a U-turn, parking two houses up.

  He waited a full minute to see if he had been spotted, but when there was no obvious response, he got out of the car and went the rest of the way on foot, holding up just inches from the edge of the tall fence.

  Peering around the corner he could see a shed to the right and a back door into the house. No lights were showing from any of the windows, and nothing moved. But the white Caddy Escalade that Cassy had described in her phone call was parked to the left of the door. Hardy had not been lying to him; this definitely was the place. But it was a sure bet that the BP’s chief of security had warned them that someone was on the way.

  Drawing his pistol and keeping it low in his left hand, the muzzle pointed away from his leg, he moved briskly past the fence and made his way to the front porch. He sprinted up the walk and mounted the two stairs to the door framed by narrow, stained-glass windows.

  He tried the doorknob with his right hand, and it turned easily. It wasn’t locked. They were expecting him.

  Backing away, he looked through the window on the left and spotted the vague outline of someone standing just inside. Raising his pistol he fired one shot, and the figure moved backward and fell to the floor.

  At that moment he burst through the door in time to see a man appear on the stairs, and he fired another shot, hitting him center mass.

  As the man tumbled forward down the stairs, two others appeared in the wide doorway to the right, their guns drawn, but before they could fire, Ben shot both of them in the chest.

  He ducked back, and an instant later someone behind the two men began firing.

  Waiting for a brief lull, Ben reached around the corner and fired four shots in rapid succession.

  Someone grunted, and the house fell silent.

  Ben stepped back to the door, and making sure that no one was coming up the walk, closed and locked it. No one was coming up on his six, at least not through the front door.

  The man lying at the foot of the stairs was still alive. He had his pistol in his right hand, and Ben took it away, ejected the magazine and cycled the round from the chamber, then laid the pistol aside.

  He held his breath for a long moment. The house was silent, though he was pretty sure that there were others here, probably spread around.

  Pressing the muzzle of his Beretta against the man’s temple, he leaned in close. “Where is the lady who was brought here?” he whispered.

  The man mumbled something that Ben couldn’t quite catch.

  “Tell me, and I’ll let you live.”

  The man raised his head a couple of inches so that he could look up at Ben. “In the attic, but you’ll never get her out of here alive.”

  Ben pushed him aside, then got to his feet and made some noise tromping up the first four steps before he silently came back down.

  Almost immediately a man in the dining room peered around the corner, leading with his gun hand, but before he could shoot, Ben fired three shots into the plaster wall just to the left of the doorway.

  * * *

  Melnik and Sergei came into the kitchen where Anosov stood next to the dining room door, just out of the line of fire. No one else was in the kitchen.

  “He came through the front door, but locked it behind him,” Melnik whispered.

  “Valentin’s down and so are Ilya and, from the sounds of it, probably Nikolai and Yuri,” Anosov said. “I don’t know about the others, but this fucking guy is good.”

  “What do you want us to do?”

  “Go back outside and cover the front door. I’ll stay here.”

  * * *

  Holding up just around the corner from the dining room door, Ben had heard at least one man come into the kitchen, but then leave. Almost certainly to go back outside and cover the front door.

  Moving with care, he stepped over the Russian who was barely breathing and silently made his way upstairs to the landing, where he peered around the corner. The long hallway was very dark, and so far as he could see, nothing moved.

  The attic stairs had been pulled down, but there was no noise from up here or downstairs. And there was no way for him to know how many Russians were still operational.

  * * *

  In the attic room Cassy had listened to the gunfight below, and she knew that Ben was here for her. Earlier the stairs had been pulled down, and she’d heard one man coming up. At that point she’d been certain that either the bastard who’d tried to rape her or one of his other assholes was on their way to try again.

  She went to the door and looked through one of the cracks. The attic was mostly in darkness, but she could make out the dim figure of a man crouched next to the opening where the stairs had been pulled down.

  “One man at the head of the attic stairs,” she shouted. “At least eight others downstairs.”

  * * *

  “Suka,” the Russian crouched at the attic opening muttered under his breath. Bitch.

  Keeping an eye on the corridor below, he turned toward the room where the woman was being kept, all thoughts of fucking her now out of his head. He just wanted to shut her mouth, permanently.

  * * *

  “Now,” Cassy shouted, as the Russian pointed his gun at her, and she dropped to the floor.

  * * *

  Melnik turned toward the stair opening and crouched down as a man’s arm, gun in hand, rose up. Instinctively he batted the pistol away with his left hand as he tried to bring his gun around.

  * * *

  Ben grabbed the Russian’s gun hand and yanked hard as he swung to the left, halfway off the stairs.

  The pistol discharged a few inches wide and the Russian came headfirst through the opening, flailing his arms as he fell to the corridor floor.

  Turning back, Ben fired two shots, the first hitting the Russian in the left shoulder and the second plowing into the base of his skull.

  The house fell silent again.

  * * *

  Cassy got to her feet. “Ben?” she said.

  “Here,” he answered just outside the door, and she stepped back as the latch was withdrawn, and he was there, taking her in his arms.

  “Oh God, oh God,” she cried. “I knew you would come.”

  They parted, and she looked up in his eyes.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “Can you walk?”

  “With you, anywhere, anytime.”

  * * *

  Anosov slumped against the kitchen doorframe. One of Spetsnaz’s rules was that if things seemed to be going to shit they probably were, and it was time to stand down and cut your losses.

  He heard Whalen and his woman in the hallway above.

  “Mr. Whalen,” he shouted.

  “Yes,” Ben called back.

  “I propose a truce.”

  “Talk to me.”

  “You have what you came for, and my casualties have become unacceptable. I’m in the kitchen at the back of the house, and my remaining man is in the front waiting for you. We will withdraw him and give you a clear path away from here.”

  “I can’t trust you.”

  “I give my word as a former Spetsnaz captain to a former SEAL officer.”

  “I still don’t know if I can trust you.”

  “I’m going to put my weapon down and come to the front hall, where I will unlock the door and tell my man that we are going to walk away. There is a good afterhours place one block away where we will go to have a vodka.”

  “Do it now,” Ben said.

  Anosov laid his pistol on the kitchen table, then walked out into the stair hall where he unlocked the door. He didn’t bother looking up the stairs.

  “We’re going
for a drink,” he called to Sergei. “The battle is over.” They were withdrawing from the fight considerably richer than they were before it had begun.

  * * *

  Ben and Cassy waited for a full five minutes before they descended to the ground floor, and then he was cautious leaving.

  Outside he kept a 360 watch as they walked to where he’d parked the car, but he didn’t breathe easy until they were out of the neighborhood and heading back to the Best Western.

  “Jesus Christ, you scared the living shit out of me,” Chip’s voice came over Ben’s cell phone.

  Cassy laughed so hard that Ben thought she had lost it, but then he started to laugh as well.

  “It’s over,” he said.

  “Not quite,” Cassy told him.

  106

  It was well after one, and the gala was winding down, when Treadwell’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. It was Dammerman.

  “Hardy just told me that we have the flash drive.”

  “That’s fantastic,” Treadwell said. Finally things were getting back on track. “How’d he come up with it?”

  “The prick wouldn’t tell me. I want to fire his ass.”

  “He may be a prick, but we should give him a raise.”

  “You’re the boss.”

  “Yes, I am. Where are you?”

  “I’m at the office to see that we don’t run into any more shit.”

  “You’re right. I’m going to break free here and come in soon as I get Bernice home.”

  Dammerman hung up.

  Treadwell pocketed his cell phone. They were a go for opening bell.

  Bernice came up behind him. “I’m ready to leave,” she said.

  He turned to her. “I need to get back to the office, but I’ll drop you off at home first.”